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ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


A.  P.  HACOBIAN 


ARMENIA 


OCT  I  1918 


AN  ARMENIAN’S  POINT  OF  VIEW 
WITH  AN  APPEAL  TO  BRITAIN  AND 
THE  COMING  PEACE  CONFERENCE 


BY 

A.  P.  HACOBIAN 


WITH  A  PREFACE  BY  THE  RT.  HON. 

VISCOUNT  BRYCE,  O.M. 


NEW  YORK 

GEORGE  H. DORAN  COMPANY 


“They  are  slaves  who  fear  to  speak 
For  the  fallen  and  the  weak: 

They  are  slaves  who  will  not  choose 
Hatred,  scoffing  and  abuse, 

Rather  than  in  silence  shrink 
From  the  truth  they  needs  must  think : 
They  are  slaves  who  dare  not  be 
In  the  right  with  two  or  three.” 


Lowell8 


“To  serve  Armenia  is  to  serve  civilization.” 


W.  E.  Gladstone. 


“We  have  put  our  money  on  the  wrong  horse.”  1 

The  Marquis  of  Salisbury. 


« 

•  • 

corrupt.” 


a  Government  incurably  barbarous  and 

The  Duke  of  Argyll. 


“.  .  .  the  Ottoman  Empire  .  .  .  decidedly 

foreign  to  Western  civilization” 

Allies’  Note  to  President  Wilson, 

January  11,  1917. 


1  After  the  massacres  of  1895-1896,  Lord  Salisbury, 
who  had  himself  taken  a  prominent  part  in  the  consumma¬ 
tion  of  the  Treaty  of  Berlin  and  the  Cyprus  Convention, 
frankly  admitted  the  failure  of  the  policy  which  gave 
birth  to  these  treaties,  and  the  futility  of  relying  upon 
Turkish  promises. 


* 

INTRODUCTORY  NOTE 

|.m. 

The  end  of  the  war  will  leave  Great  Britain 
and  her  Allies  the  practical  arbiters  of  the  desti¬ 
nies  of  Europe  and  the  Near  East.  The  pre¬ 
dominant  part  played  in  the  prosecution  of  the 
war  by  Great  Britain  and  the  British  Empire 
will  entitle  them  to  an  equally  decisive  voice  in 
the  councils  of  the  Peace  Conference.  That 
proud  position  carries  with  it  a  supreme  privilege 
as  well  as  a  heavy  moral  responsibility.  That 
the  voice  and  weight  of  Britain  and  Greater 
Britain  will  be  cast,  on  all  occasions,  on  the  side 
of  justice  and  liberty,  there  cannot  be  the  slight¬ 
est  doubt.  But  however  just  and  fair-minded  a 
judge  may  be,  it  is  impossible  for  him  to  dispense 
justice  without  hearing  all  sides  of  the  case  before 
him. 

That  is  my  plea  for  placing  this  statement  of 
the  cause  of  my  afflicted  country  before  the 
British  public,  confident  that,  with  its  inherent 
love  of  fair  play,  it  will  give  my  pleading  a  fair 
hearing. 

I  am  anxious  to  make  one  point  clear.  I  hold 
no  authority  and  claim  no  right  whatever  to 


Vll 


Vlll 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE 


speak  for  the  nation  or  any  national  or  local 
organization  of  any  kind.  The  views  set  forth 
in  this  little  volume  are  the  views  of  an  individual 
Armenian  who  feels,  as  do  no  doubt  all  his  com¬ 
patriots,  that  the  Armenian  blood  that  has 
flowed  so  freely  in  this  war,  imposes  upon  every 
living  Armenian  the  sacred  duty  of  employing 
all  legitimate  means  in  his  power  to  secure  to  the 
survivors  the  justice  and  reparation  to  which  their 
numerous  fallen  relatives  have  given  them  an 
overwhelming  and  indisputable  title.  They  are 
my  views,  and  the  responsibility  for  them  rests  on 
myself  and  myself  alone. 

I  have  stated  my  views  frankly.  One  or  two 
of  my  friends  were  kind  enough  to  express  the 
opinion  that  that  might  injure  our  cause.  While 
I  appreciate  their  interest  and  solicitude,  I  do 
not  share  their  fears.  I  am  convinced  that  the 
truth  can  never  be  unpopular  with  the  British 
public  or  prejudice  a  good  cause. 

I  have,  of  necessity,  had  to  quote  freely  from 
many  sources,  and  I  take  this  opportunity  to 
express  my  apologies  and  indebtedness  to  the 
authorities  quoted,  in  particular  to  Lord  Bryce 
and  Mr.  Arnold  J.  Toynbee  for  very  kindly  per¬ 
mitting  me  to  quote  extracts  from  the  Blue  Book. 

A.  P.  Hacobian. 


London. 


PREFACE 


Of  all  the  peoples  upon  whom  this  war  has 
brought  calamity  and  suffering,  the  Armenian 
people  have  had  the  most  to  endure.  Great  as 
has  been  the  misery  inflicted  by  the  invaders  upon 
the  non-combatant  populations  of  Belgium  and 
Northern  France,  upon  Poland,  upon  Serbia, 
the  misery  of  Armenia,  though  far  less  known 
to  the  outer  world,  has  been  far  more  terrible. 

When  the  European  War  broke  oat,  in  1914, 
the  Government  of  the  Turkish  Empire  had 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  a  small  gang  of  unscru¬ 
pulous  ruffians  calling  themselves  the  Committee 
of  Union  and  Progress,  who  were  ruling  through 
their  command  of  the  army,  but  in  the  name  of 
the  harmless  and  imbecile  Sultan.  By  means 
which  have  not  been  fully  disclosed,  but  the  na¬ 
ture  of  which  can  be  easily  conjectured,  this  gang 
were  won  over  to  serve  the  interests  of  Germany ; 
and  at  Germany’s  bidding  they  declared  war 
against  the  Western  Allies,  thus  dragging  all 
the  subjects  of  Turkey,  Muslim  and  Christian, 
into  a  conflict  with  which  they  had  no  concern. 
The  Armenian  Christians  scattered  through  the 


IX 


X 


PREFACE 


Asiatic  part  of  the  Turkish  dominions,  having 
had  melancholy  experience  in  the  Adana  massa¬ 
cres  some  years  previously  of  what  cruelties  the 
ruling  gang  were  capable  of  perpetrating,  were 
careful  to  remain  quiet,  and  to  furnish  no  pretext 
to  the  Turkish  authorities  for  an  attack  upon 
them.  But  the  rulers  of  Turkey  showed  that  they 
did  not  need  a  pretext  for  the  execution  of  the 
nefarious  purposes  they  cherished.  They  had 
formed  a  design  for  the  extermination  of  the  non- 
Mohammedan  elements  in  the  population  of  Asi¬ 
atic  Turkey,  in  order  to  make  what  they  called 
a  homogeneous  nation,  consisting  of  Moham¬ 
medans  only.  The  wickedness  of  such  a  design 
was  equalled  only  by  its  blind  folly,  for  the 
Christian  Armenians  of  Asia  Minor  and  the 
north-eastern  provinces  constituted  the  most  in¬ 
dustrious,  the  most  intelligent,  and  the  best- 
educated  part  of  the  population.  Most  of  the 
traders  and  merchants,  nearly  all  the  skilled 
artisans,  were  Armenians,  and  to  destroy  them 
was  to  destroy  the  chief  industrial  asset  which 
these  regions  possessed.  However,  this  was  the 
plan  of  the  Committee  of  Union  and  Progress, 
and  as  soon  as  they  began  to  feel,  in  the  spring 
of  1915,  that  the  Allied  expedition  against  the 
Dardanelles  was  not  likely  to  succeed,  they  pro¬ 
ceeded  to  execute  it.  They  first  disarmed  all  the 


PREFACE 


xi 


Armenians  in  order  to  have  them  at  their  mercy; 
and  in  some  cases,  in  order  to  make  it  appear  that 
the  Armenians  were  intending  to  take  up  arms, 
they  actually  sent  weapons  into  the  towns  and 
then  had  them  seized  as  evidence  against  the 
Christians.  When  such  arms  as  the  Christians 
possessed  had  been  secured,  orders  for  massacre 
were  issued  from  Constantinople  to  the  local 
governors.  The  whole  Armenian  population  was 
seized.  The  grown  men  were  slaughtered  with¬ 
out  mercy.  The  younger  women  were  sold  in  the 
market  place  to  the  highest  bidder,  or  appropri¬ 
ated  by  Turkish  military  officers  and  civil  officials 
to  become  slaves  in  Turkish  harems.  The  boys 
were  handed  over  to  dervishes  to  be  carried  off 
and  brought  up.  as  Muslims.  The  rest  of  the 
hapless  victims,  all  the  older  men  and  women,  the 
mothers  and  their  babes  clinging  to  them,  were 
torn  from  their  homes  and  driven  out  along  the 
tracks  which  led  into  the  desert  region  of  north¬ 
ern  Syria  and  Arabia.  Most  of  them  perished 
on  the  way  from  hardships,  from  disease,  from 
starvation.  A  few  were  still  surviving  some 
months  ago  near  Aleppo  and  along  the  banks  of 
the  Euphrates.  Many,  probably  thousands,  were 
drowned  in  that  river  and  its  tributaries,  martyrs 
to  their  Christian  faith,  which  they  had  refused 
to  renounce;  for  it  was  generally  possible  for 


xn 


PREFACE 


women,  and  sometimes  for  men,  to  save  them¬ 
selves  by  accepting  Mohammedanism.  By  these 
various  methods  hundreds  of  thousands — the 
number  is  variously  estimated  at  from  500,000 
to  800,000 — have  perished.  And  all  this  was 
done  with  the  tacit  acquiescence  of  the  German 
Government,  some  of  whose  representatives  on 
the  spot  are  even  said  to  have  encouraged  the 
Turks  in  their  work  of  slaughter,  while  the 
Government  confined  its  action  to  propagating 
in  Germany,  so  as  to  deceive  its  own  people,  false 
stories  which  alleged  that  the  Armenians  had 
been  punished  for  insurrectionary  movements. 

All  these  facts,  with  many  details  too  horrible 
to  be  repeated  here,  are  set  forth  in  the  Blue- 
book  recently  published  in  England,  containing 
accounts  based  upon  incontrovertible  evidence, 
and  to  which  no  reply  has  been  made,  though 
some  denials,  palpably  false,  have  emanated  from 
the  Turkish  gang,  and  some  others  from  the  Ger¬ 
man  Government. 

The  victims  who  have  thus  been  put  to  death, 
a  large  part  of  the  whole  Armenian  people,  be¬ 
long  to  what  is  one  of  the  oldest  nations  in  the 
world,  which  has  been  Christian  and  civilized  ever 
since  the  third  century  of  our  era.  If  any  people 
ever  deserved  the  sympathy  of  the  civilized  world, 
it  is  they  who  have  clung  to  their  faith  and  the 


PREFACE 


xm 

traditions  of  their  ancient  kingdom  ever  since 
that  kingdom  was  overthrown  by  the  Turkish 
invaders  many  centuries  ago.  They  now  appeal 
to  the  Allied  Nations  who  are  fighting  the  battle 
of  Right  and  Humanity  against  the  German 
Government  and  its  barbarous  Turkish  allies, 
asking  that  when  the  end  of  the  war  comes  their 
case  may  be  considered  and  they  may  be  for  ever 
delivered  from  the  Turkish  yoke.  Nowhere  is 
their  hard  case  better  known  than  in  the  United 
States,  for  it  is  the  American  missionaries  who 
have,  by  their  admirable  schools  and  colleges 
planted  in  many  cities  of  Asiatic  Turkey,  done 
more  for  them  than  any  other  country  has  done, 
giving  them  light,  consolation  and  sympathy. 

The  author  of  this  little  book  is  an  Armenian 
gentleman  belonging  to  a  family  originally  from 
Ispahan  in  Persia,  but  now  settled  in  England. 
He  speaks  with  intimate  knowledge  as  well  as 
with  patriotic  feeling,  and  states  the  case  of  his 
countrymen  with  a  moderation  well  fitted  to 
inspire  confidence.  Upon  the  arguments  he  puts 
forward  I  do  not  venture  to  express  any  opinion 
in  detail.  But  those  who  know  something  of 
Asiatic  Turkey  will  recognize  with  him  that  the 
Armenians  are,  by  their  intelligence  and  their 
irrepressible  energy,  the  race  best  fitted  to  restore 


XIV 


PREFACE 


prosperity  to  regions  desolated  by  Turkish  op¬ 
pression.  The  educated  Armenians,  notwith¬ 
standing  all  they  have  suffered,  are  abreast  of 
the  modern  world  of  civilization.  Among  them 
are  many  men  of  science  and  learning,  as  well  as 
artists  and  poets.  They  are  scattered  in  many 
lands.  I  have  visited  large  Armenian  colonies  as 
far  west  as  California,  and  there  are  others  as  far 
east  as  Rangoon.  Many  of  the  exiles  would  re¬ 
turn  to  their  ancient  home  if  they  could  but  be 
guaranteed  that  security  and  peace  which  they 
have  never  had,  and  can  never  have,  under  the 
rule  of  the  Turk.  May  we  not  confidently  hope 
that  the  Allied  Powers  will  find  means  for  giving 
it  to  them  at  the  end  of  this  war,  for  extending 
to  them  that  security  which  they  have  long  desired 
and  are  capable  of  using  well? 


Bryce. 


CONTENTS 


I.  ARMENIA  AS  A  WAR  ISSUE — GREATEST  SUF¬ 
FERER  FROM  TURKO-PRUSSIAN  “  FRIGHTFUL¬ 
NESS  ” — EFFECT  ON  AMERICAN  OPINION 

II.  ARMENIA  AND  REPARATION - ARMENIA’S  MAR¬ 
TYRDOM - CONDEMNATION  AND  DEMAND  FOR 

REPARATION  INADEQUATELY  EXPRESSED 

III.  “THE  GENTLE  AND  CLEAN-FIGHTING  TURK”  . 

IY.  ANGLO-RUSSIAN  FRIENDSHIP  A  VITAL  NECES¬ 
SITY  FOR  PEACE  AND  PROGRESS  IN  ASIA - 

MOSLEMS.  AND  TURKISH  RULE - ARMENIANS 

PROGRESSIVE  AND  DEMOCRATIC  BY  TEMPERA¬ 
MENT  . 

V.  ARMENIA  AS  A  PEACE  PROBLEM - VIEWS  OF  THE 

“MANCHESTER  GUARDIAN”  AND  THE  “SPEC¬ 
TATOR” - CAN  ARMENIANS  STAND  ALONE 

AMONG  THE  KURDS? - AMERICAN  OPINION 

AND  THE  FUTURE  OF  ARMENIA  .... 

vi.  Armenia’s  services  in  the  war  .... 

VII.  ARMENIA  THE  BATTLE-GROUND  OF  ASIA  MINOR 
AND  VICTIM  OF  CONTENDING  EMPIRES 

VIII.  THE  BLUE-BOOK - THE  EPIC  OF  ARMENIA’S  MAR¬ 

TYRDOM,  THE  REVELATION  OF  HER  SPIRIT 
AND  CHARACTER — “TRUTH”  ON  THE  ARME¬ 
NIANS:  A  DIGRESSION . 


PAGE 

19- 

27 

37 

53 

62 

76 

89 

101 


XV 


xvi  CONTENTS 

IX.  EXTRACTS  FROM  THE  BLUE-BOOK  .... 

X.  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  ARMENIA - THE  LATE  DUKE 

of  Argyll’s  views — an  appeal  to  Britain 

XI.  AN  APPEAL  TO  THE  COMING  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

POSTSCRIPT .  .... 


PAGE 

118 

142 

159 

177 


APPENDIX 


185 


N 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 

I 

ARMENIA  AS  A  WAR  ISSUE - GREATEST  SUFFERER  FROM 

TURKO-PRUSSIAN  “FRIGHTFULNESS” - EFFECT  ON 

AMERICAN  OPINION 

THE  first  official  advance  for  peace  made  by- 
Germany  and  her  Allies,  although  couched 
in  defiant  and  menacing  terms,  was  nevertheless 
an  unmistakable  signal  of  distress,  and  has 
brought  the  world  within  measurable  distance  of 
that  just  and  durable  peace  which  the  Allies  have 
set  out  to  achieve.  The  prospect  of  approaching 
peace  has  set  on  foot  a  general  reiteration  of  the 
issues  at  stake,  and  consideration  of  the  terms 
and  problems  of  peace.  Public  attention  in  this 
country  will  naturally  be  occupied,  in  the  first 
place,  with  the  momentous  issues  and  interests  of 
the  United  Kingdom,. the  British  Empire  and 
her  Allies  raised  by  the  war  and  to  be  settled  and 
secured  by  the  impending  peace.  It  will  there¬ 
fore,  I  hope,  not  be  considered  amiss  or  pre- 

19 


20 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


mature  for  a  member  of  one  of  those  small  and 
oppressed  peoples  engulfed  in  the  vortex  of  the 
war  who  look  to  Great  Britain  and  her  Allies 
for  deliverance,  reparation  and  the  security  of 
their  future  liberty,  to  put  before  the  British 
public  his  views,  as  well  as  facts  and  arguments 
that  may  be  of  some  service  in  enabling  it  to  form 
a  just  estimate  of  the  claims  and  merits  of  one  of 
the  smaller  problems  which  run  the  risk  of  not 
receiving  a  full  hearing  at  the  Peace  Conference, 
in  the  presence  of  a  multitude  of  larger  and  more 
important  questions. 

The  item  in  the  Allied  peace  terms  stated  in 
their  reply  to  President  Wilson’s  note,  “the  set¬ 
ting  free  of  the  populations  subject  to  the  bloody 
tyranny  of  the  Turks,”  is  the  bearer  to  Arme¬ 
nians  of  a  message  of  comfort  and  hope.  It  her¬ 
alds  the  dawn  of  a  new  day  that  will  mark  the 
end  of  the  long  and  hideous  nightmare  of  Turk¬ 
ish  tyranny. 

If  President  Wilson,  the  American  people, 
or  other  neutrals  were  in  search  of  evidence  that 
would  prove  to  them  conclusively  which  of  the 
two  groups  of  belligerents  is  sincere  in  its  profes¬ 
sions  of  regard  for  “the  rights  and  privileges  of 
weak  peoples  and  small  states”;  if  Belgium  had 
not  been  violated  and  ravaged;  if  the  Lusitania 
and  so  many  hospital  ships,  liners  and  merchant- 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR  21 

men  had  not  been  sunk  without  any  care  as  to  the 
fate  of  the  wounded,  the  children  and  women, 
the  non-combatant  men  and  crews;  if  Zeppelins 
had  not  spread  death  and  destruction  among 
women  and  children  in  their  homes  in  the  night; 
if  all  these  and  so  many  other  outrages  had  not 
been  committed,  and  there  had  been,  in  the  whole 
course  of  the  war,  no  other  act  of  the  Quadruple 
Alliance  in  any  degree  contrary  to  the  laws  and 
usages  of  civilized  warfare  and  dictates  of  hu¬ 
manity,  the  single  word  Armenia  would  provide 
that  proof — a  crushing,  monumental  proof — as 
to  who  is  and  who  is  not  sincere  in  the  professions 
of  regard  for  right,  justice  and  humanity.  The 
spirit  of  desolated  Armenia  stands  at  the  head 
of  the  phantom  spirits  of  outraged  humanity, 
which  must  rise  and  shatter  to  atoms  every  mask 
of  benevolence,  righteousness  and  injured  inno¬ 
cence  that  the  protagonists  of  “frightfulness” 
may  assume  for  the  deception  of  their  own  peo¬ 
ples  and  neutrals. 

But  in  the  United  States  at  least  there  is  no 
need  for  any  fresh  proof  or  explanation  of  the 
issue  at  this  stage,  and  the  martyrdom  of  Ar¬ 
menia  has  contributed  largely  to  that  state  of 
American  opinion.  I  have  little  doubt  that  Pres¬ 
ident  Wilson’s  Peace  Note  and  speech  to  the 
Senate  are  the  first  steps  towards  America  cast- 


22 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


ing  her  whole  weight  into  the  scale,  aiming  at  the 
realization  of  a  just  and  lasting  peace. 

The  intense  interest  evinced  by  the  people  and 
Government  of  the  United  States  in  the  fate  of 
Armenia  and  the  Armenians  is  abundantly  shown 
not  only  by  the  generous  gifts  of  money  for  the 
relief  of  the  survivors  and  the  noble  personal 
services  by  devoted  missionaries  and  relief  agents, 
some  of  whom  lost  their  lives  in  their  work  of 
mercy;  but  also  by  diplomatic  action  on  behalf 
of  the  Armenians  in  Constantinople  (where  Mr. 
Morgenthau,  to  his  great  honour,  struggled  vali¬ 
antly  to  stay  the  hand  of  the  ruthless  oppressor) , 
and  by  the  prominence  given  to  any  and  every 
scrap  of  news  concerning  the  holocaust  in  Ar¬ 
menia.  It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that,  military 
operations  apart,  no  incident  of  the  war,  not 
excepting  the  violation  and  martyrdom  of  Bel¬ 
gium,  has  been  given  more  space  and  prominence 
in  the  American  Press  than  anything  connected 
with  the  martyrdom  of  Armenia  and  Syria  and 
the  relief  of  the  refugees  and  exiles. 

In  his  reply  to  the  Armenian  deputation  who 
on  December  14,  1916,  presented  to  him  an  illu¬ 
minated  parchment  from  the  Catholicos  express¬ 
ing  His  Holiness’s  gratitude  and  thanks  to  the 
American  nation,  President  Wilson  said,  inter 
alia — 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR  23 

“We  have  tried  to  do  what  was  possible  to 
save  your  people  from  the  ravages  of  war.  My 
great  regret  is,  that  we  have  been  able  to  accom¬ 
plish  so  little.  There  have  been  many  suffering 
peoples  as  the  result  of  that  terrible  struggle,  and 
the  lot  of  none  has  touched  the  American  heart 
more  than  the  suffering  of  the  Armenians f 31 

Nothing  in  the  war  has  brought  home  to  the 
people  of  the  United  States  the  moral  issues  of 
the  war  more  strongly  and  vividly  than  the  un¬ 
precedented  barbarities  committed  by  the  Turks 
in  their  diabolical  attempt  to  wipe  out  the  Ar¬ 
menian  race.  No  event  of  the  war  has  been  more 
damaging  to  the  Central  Powers  in  the  eyes  of 
the  United  States.  Here  they  have  seen  the  ruth¬ 
less  spirit  of  the  twin  enemies  of  humanity  and 
liberty — the  Turkish  yatagan  supported  by  the 
Prussian  jack-boot — in  its  hideous  nakedness,  at 
work  in  the  depths  of  Asia,  unrestrained  and  un¬ 
perceived,  as  they  thought,  by  the  light  of  civili¬ 
zation. 

This  gospel  of  the  jack-boot  and  the  yatagan 
will  be  best  illustrated  by  putting  si.de  by  side  two 
quotations,  one  from  the  Tanine ,  the  official 
organ  of  the  Committee  of  Union  and  Progress 

1  Quoted  in  The  New  Armenia  of  New  York,  January  1, 
1917.  The  italics  are  mine. 


24 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


in  Constantinople,  and  the  other  from  a  state¬ 
ment  made  by  Count  Reventlow  in  October 
1915.  The  Tamne  “invited  the  Government  to 
exterminate  or  forcibly  convert  to  Islam  all  Ar¬ 
menian  women  in  Turkey  as  the  only  means  of 
saving  the  Ottoman  Empire.”1  Count  Revent¬ 
low,  the  high  priest  of  the  gospel  of  Brute 
Force  and  Militarism,  writing  in  the  Tages- 
zeitimg  in  defence  and  approval  of  Turkey’s 
appalling  crime,  said  that  it  was  the  Ottoman 
Government’s  obvious  right  and  duty  to  take 
the  strongest  repressive  measures  against  “the 
bloodthirsty  Armenians” — the  measures  advo¬ 
cated  by  the  Tanine,  which  were  carried  out  by 
Count  Reventlow’s  worthy  allies  on  the  Bospho¬ 
rus  with  a  completeness  and  ferocity  that  must 
have  greatly  pleased  him. 

The  German  Government  and  German  apolo¬ 
gists  have  made  a  great  parade  of  the  use  of 
Indian  and  African  troops  in  Europe  by  the 
Allies.  By  all  reports,  these  troops  have  fought 
,  as  clean  a  fight  as  any  troops  in  the  war.  I  think 
that  in  the  judgment  of  future  historians  no  inci¬ 
dent  of  this  war,  whose  history  is  so  heavily  shad¬ 
owed  on  one  side  with  outrages  and  violations  of 
the  laws  of  civilized  warfare,  will  meet  with  so 
strong  a  condemnation  as  Germany’s  alliance 

i 

1  Quoted  in  Guerre  Soeiale  (Paris),  September  16,  1915. 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


25 


with  the  Young  Turks,  the  declaration  of  a  “holy 
war”  at  her  behest,  and  its  dire  consequences  for 
the  already  sorely  tried  Christian  subjects  of  the 
Turks.  (It  should  be  remembered  that  Germany 
and  Austria  are  signatories  to  the  Treaty  of 
Berlin,  Art.  61  of  which  was  to  have  brought 
about  “the  improvements  and  reforms  demanded 
by  local  requirements  in  the  provinces  inhabited 
by  the  Armenians,”  and  to  have  “guaranteed 
their  security  against  the  Kurds  and  Circas¬ 
sians.”  This  point  cannot  be  too  strongly  em¬ 
phasized.)  She  could  have  foreseen  these  conse¬ 
quences;  and  if  she  did  not  foresee  them,  she 
could  have  stopped  them  when  they  made  them¬ 
selves  apparent.  Turkey’s  entry  into  the  war 
placed  her  Christian  subjects  in  a  position  of 
great  peril,  as  it  has  been  her  custom  to  wreak 
upon  them  her  vengeance  for  defeats;  while  a 
state  of  war  freed  her  from  the  moral  restraint 
of  Europe.  It  was  hoped  that  German  and 
Austrian  influence  would  check  this  tendency. 
How  cruelly  events  have  shattered  that  hope! 
They  have  proved  that  it  was  too  much  to  expect 
humanity  and  the  ordinary  feelings  of  chivalry 
and  compassion  for  the  honour  and  suffering  of 
women  and  children  from  the  State  policies  of 
these  great  Christian  Governments  and  the  ma¬ 
jority  of  their  agents  in  Turkey.  I  do  not  believe 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


26~ 

that  this  ungodly  and  inhuman  policy  has  re¬ 
ceived  general  approbation  either  in  Germany 
or  Austria-Hungary.  This  is  evident  from  the 
quotations  from  German  missionary  journals  in 
the  Blue-book  on  the  “Treatment  of  Armenians 
in  the  Ottoman  Empire.”1  It  is  also  proved  by 
the  protests  addressed  to  the  Imperial  Chancellor 
by  several  Catholic  and  Protestant  organizations. 

1  The  Treatment  of  Armenians  in  the  Ottoman  Empire, 
Documents  presented  to  Viscount  Grey  of  Fallodon,  Secre¬ 
tary  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs,  with  a  preface  by  Vis¬ 
count  Bryce  (Hodder  &  Stoughton). 


II 


ARMENIA  AND  REPARATION— ARMENIANS  MARTYRDOM - - 

■CONDEMNATION  AND  DEMAND  FOR  REPARATION  IN¬ 
ADEQUATELY  EXPRESSED 

THE  Governments  of  the  Allies  have  unani¬ 
mously  declared  that  peace  is  only  possible 
on  the  principles  of  adequate  reparation  for  the 
past,  adequate  security  for  the  future,  and  rec¬ 
ognition  of  the  principle  of  nationalities  and  of 
the  free  existence  of  small  states. 

"Reparation”  means  no  doubt  in  the  first  place 
reparation  for  the  wanton  and  ruthless  destruc¬ 
tion  of  unoffending  and  defenceless  civilian  lives 
and  property. 

It  is  characteristic  of  the  British  sense  of  jus¬ 
tice  and  fair  play  that  Belgium,  France  and 
Serbia  should  be  given  the  first  place  in  their 
demand  for  reparation,  for,  of  course,  there  are 
the  British  victims  of  "frightfulness,”  Zeppelin 
and  submarine  victims  and  the  victims  of  judicial 
murders  to  be  atoned  for  and  recompensed. 

This  unanimous  demand  for  reparation  to  the 
smaller  nations  for  all  they  have  suffered  as  a 

27 


28 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


result  of  the  brutal  and  unscrupulous  aggression 
of  their  more  powerful  neighbours,  and  their  se¬ 
curity  and  free  development,  augurs  well  for  the 
future.  It  is  an  earnest  given  by  the  Entente 
Powers  to  the  world,  of  the  sincerity  of  their 
declarations  regarding  the  unselfish,  just  and 
wrorthy  objects  which  they  entered  the  war  to 
attain. 

I  must  be  excused,  however,  if  I  confess  to 
feeling  not  a  little  perplexity  at  the  fact  that,  in 
discussing  the  peace  terms,  the  great  organs  of 
British  public  opinion,  with  some  notable  excep¬ 
tions,1  have  made  little  or  no  reference  to  Arme¬ 
nia  in  the  demand  for  penalties,  reparation  and 
redemption.  This  fact  must  have  impressed  Mr. 
Arthur  Henderson,  who,  in  his  reference  to  Ar¬ 
menia  quoted  more  fully  elsewhere,  remarked 
that  “.  .  .  Armenian  atrocities  were  not  much 
talked  about  here  .  .  .  etc.”  My  anxiety  will 
be  understood  when  I  point  out  that  for  us  it  is 
not  a  question  of  a  little  more  or  less  territory, 

1  Armenians  are  especially  indebted  to  the  Manchester 
Guardian  and  The  Times  for  their  valuable  services  to 
their  cause,  humanity  and  truth  in  exposing  the  reign  of 
terror  in  Armenia  and  the  Turk’s  affectation  of  “clean¬ 
fighting.”  Part  101  of  The  Times  History  and  Encyclo- 
pcedia  of  the  War  was  the  first  detailed  account  of  what 
had  happened  in  Armenia  since  the  outbreak  of  war,  and  I 
may  add  that,  considering  the  difficulties  of  obtaining  in¬ 
formation,  it  is  a  remarkably  well-informed  account. 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


29 


a  little  larger  or  smaller  indemnity.  For  us  more 
than  for  any  other  race  involved  in  the  war  it  is 
a  question  of  “to  be  or  not  to  be”  in  a  real  and 
fateful  sense:  the  rebirth  of  Armenian  national¬ 
ity  from  the  profusion  of  its  lost  blood  and  heaps 
of  smouldering  ashes,  or  the  end  of  that  long- 
cherished  and  bled-for  aspiration,  and  the  con¬ 
summation  of  the  “policy”  of  Abdul  Hamid  and 
the  Young  Turks. 

The  first  general  discussion  of  the  terms  of 
peace  has  coincided  with  the  publication,  as  a 
Blue-book,  of  Lord  Bryce’s  comprehensive  doc¬ 
umentary  evidence  on  the  attempt  of  the  Turks 
to  murder  the  Armenian  nation  in  cold  blood. 
I  gratefully  acknowledge  the  fact  that  many 
newspapers  wrote  sympathetic  editorial  articles 
or  reviews  on  the  Blue-book,  emphasizing,  with 
incontestable  force,  that  this  conclusive  evidence 
of  the  abominable  crimes  committed  by  the  Turks 
in  Armenia  without  any  protest  from  official 
Germany,  is  a  crushing  reply  to  the  German 
Chancellor’s  protestations  of  solicitude  for  hu¬ 
manity. 

But,  opportune  as  has  been  the  immediate 
effect  of  this  fresh  evidence  of  Lord  Bryce’s 
noble  and  untiring  labours  in  the  cause  of  human¬ 
ity,  as  a  tragic  and  terrible  exposure  of  the  irony 
of  the  Central  Powers’  professions  of  pity  for 


30 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


suffering  humanity,  that  is  surely  not  the  only 
or  the  principal  moral  to  be  drawn  from  these 
haunting  pages.  They  constitute  a  terrible  and 
lasting  reproach  to  the  European  diplomacy  of 
our  time.  They  unfold  to  the  horrified  gaze  of 
mankind  a  vast  column  of  human  smoke  and 
human  anguish  rising  to  the  heavens  as  the  in¬ 
cense  of  the  most  fearful  yet  most  glorious  mass- 
martyrdom  the  world  has  ever  seen,  but  casting 
a  shadow  of  lasting  shame  upon  Christendom  and 
civilization.  The  unparalleled  outburst  of  bar¬ 
barity  they  reveal  did  not  come  as  a  surprise. 
Europe  had  heard  its  premonitory  rumblings 
these  last  forty  years.  As  far  back  as  1880  the 
representatives  of  the  Great  Powers  in  their 
famous  and  futile  Identic  Note  to  the  Sublime 
Porte,  saidJ>  “So  desperate  was  the  misgovern- 
ment  of  the  country  that  it  would  lead  in  all  prob¬ 
ability  to  the  destruction  of  the  Christian  popula¬ 
tion  of  vast  districts.”  The  massacres  of  1895- 
1896  and  1909  cost  the  lives  of  250,000  to  300,000 
Armenians.  But  most  of  the  European  states¬ 
men  of  the  day  persistently  refused  to  believe 
that  “the  gentle  Turk”  was  capable  of  such  bursts 
of  unspeakable  barbarism ;  while  Bismarck  de- ; 
dared  openly  that  the  whole  Eastern  Question 
was  not  worth  “the  bones  of  a  Pomeranian  grena¬ 
dier.”  His  successors  have  followed  and  im- ! 


! 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


31  * 


proved  upon  his  ruthless,  unchristian  policy,  and 
Europe  sees  the  result. 

With  due  respect  to  the  small  minority  of 
humane  Turks,  who,  I  dare  say,  are  themselves 
shocked  at  what  their  rulers,  their  soldiery  and 
populace  have  proved  themselves  capable  of,  the 
Turk  as  a  race  has  added  yet  another  and  vaster 
monument  than  ever  before  to  the  long  series  of 
similar  monuments  that  fill  the  pages  of  his  blood¬ 
stained  history,  in  proof  of  the  unchangeable 
brutality  of  his  nature.  You  cannot  reason  or 
argue  with  him.  Nor  can  you  expect  justice  or 
ordinary  human  feelings  from  such  a  nature. 
The  only  sane  and  honest  way  to  deal  with  him 
is  to  make  him  innocuous.  It  is  official  Europe 
that  is  to  blame  for  leaving  him  so  long  at  large 
and  his  prey  at  his  mercy.  It  is  European  diplo¬ 
macy  of  the  past  forty  years  that  is  responsible 
for  looking  on  while  the  relentless  mutilation  was 
going  on  limb  by  limb,  until  Moloch  saw  his 
chance  in  the  war  and  all  but  devoured  his  hap¬ 
less  victim,  with  the  tacit  acquiescence  of  the 
Governments  of  two  great  Christian  empires,  and 
the  applause  of  Count  Reventlow  and  his  dis¬ 
ciples. 

How  is  it  to  be  explained  that  this  deliberately 
planned  destruction  of  more  than  half  a  million 
human  beings  by  all  the  tortures  of  the  Dark 


32 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


Ages,  and  the  deportation  and  enslavement  worse 
than  death  of  more  than  half  a  million,  have  not 
aroused  the  righteous  wrath  of  the  great  British 
writers  and  thinkers  of  the  day  to  nearly  the 
same  extent  as  the  martyrdom  of  Belgium?  How 
is  it  that  great  writers  and  poets  have  not  felt 
the  call  of  expressing  to  the  world  in  the  language 
of  genius  the  stupefying  horror  as  well  as  the 
moral  grandeur  of  this  vast,  unparalleled  trag¬ 
edy?1  Great  Britain  has  always  been,  and  is 
to-day  more  than  ever,  the  champion  and  “the 
hope  of  the  oppressed  and  the  despair  of  the  op¬ 
pressor.”  That  sympathy,  horror  and  indigna¬ 
tion  exist  in  this  country  in  the  fullest  measure 
there  is  not  the  slightest  doubt.  One  sees  proofs 
and  indications  of  their  existence  at  every  turn. 
But  why,  in  Heaven’s  name,  is  it  not  proclaimed 
to  the  world  that  the  culprits  may  know  and 
tremble  and  stay  their  hand?  Bishops  have  been 
burnt  to  death,  hundreds  of  churches  desecrated, 

1  Mr.  Israel  Zangwill  concludes  a  moving  and  eloquent 
tribute  to  the  agony  of  Armenia  in  The  New  Armenia 
(New  York)  of  March  1,  1917,  entitled  “The  Majesty  of 
Armenia,”  in  the  following  words — “I  bow  before  this ! 
higher  majesty  of  sorrow.  I  take  the  crown  of  thorns  I 
from  Israel’s  head  and  I  place  it  upon  Armenia’s.” 

Is  it  not  a  strange  fact  that  of  all  contemporary  authors) 
and  publicists  of  note,  it  should  have  fallen  to  a  famous) 
and  gifted  Jew  to  pay  the  first  tribute  to  “the  majesty”  of 
Armenia’s  martyrdom  for  the  Christian  faith? 


( 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR  33 

and  ministers  of  Christ  tortured  and  murdered; 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  Christian  women  and 
children  done  to  death  in  circumstances  of  un¬ 
speakable  barbarity  and  bestiality.  Why  are  the 
Churches  of  Great  Britain  and  all  Christendom 
not  raising  a  cry  of  indignation  that  will  reverber¬ 
ate  throughout  the  world  and  strike  the  fear  of 
God  into  the  hearts  of  these  assassins  and  all 
powers  of  darkness?  Why  is  not  a  word  said  as 
a  tribute,  so  richly  deserved,  to  the  heroic  and 
indomitable  spirit  of  the  men  and  women  and 
even  children  who  chose  torture  and  death  rather 
than  deny  their  Christ,  sacrifice  their  honour  or 
renounce  their  nationality?1  Here  is  assuredly 
the  most  inspiring  example  of  all  times  of  the 
triumph  of  the  spirit  of  Christ  and  the  fidelity  in 
death  to  conscience,  personal  honour  and  inde- 

1  Mr.  P.  W.  Wilson’s  sympathetic  and  appreciative  ar¬ 
ticles  in  The  Westminster  Gazette  and  The  Daily  News 
and  Leader  of  February  3 ,  1917,  appeared  after  the  above 
was  written.  While  I  am  most  grateful  to  Mr.  Wilson  and 
the  two  great  organs  of  British  public  opinion,  I  avail 
myself  of  this  opportunity  to  make  one  or  two  observa¬ 
tions  on  some  of  the  points  Mr.  Wilson  has  raised — 

“The  first  impulse  of  the  refugee”  has  not  only  been 
“to  start  a  shop”  but  also  to  start  a  school  and  improvise 
the  means  of  continuing  the  publication  of  the  newspaper 
he  was  publishing  in  Van  before  the  exile,  as  the  Belgians 
have  done  here  under  more  favourable  circumstances.  The 
toleration  practised  by  Armenians  and  their  Church  is  not 
due  to  adversity,  but  the  true  understanding  of  Christian¬ 
ity.  The  spirit  of  toleration  breathes  through  the  pages 


34 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


pendence,  over  savage  fury  and  brutal  lust  at 
the  highest  pitch  ever  attained  in  them  by  fiends 
in  human  form ;  a  triumph  and  an  example  more 
inspiring,  and  with  a  deeper  and  more  lasting 
significance  for  humanity  and  Christianity,  per¬ 
haps,  than  this  great  and  terrible  war  itself ;  and 
the  Churches  and  spokesmen  and  writers  of  great 
Christian  countries,  belligerent  and  neutral,  pass 
over  that  aspect  of  the  Great  Tragedy  almost  in 
complete  silence! 


of  the  history  of  the  Armenian  Church  from  the  earliest 
times. 

Mr.  Wilson  says:  “It  is  doubtless  regrettable  that  the 
Armenians  should  have  failed  to  recommend  their  progres¬ 
sive  conception  of  life  to  the  Moslems  around  them.”  This 
is  a  striking  example  of  the  misconception  that  so  often 
exists  in  the  minds  of  even  the  most  svmpathetic  observers 

v  jl. 

of  Armenian  affairs.  Mr.  Wilson  knows  no  doubt  for  how 
much  prestige  counts  in  the  East.  If  the  European  mis¬ 
sions  with  all  the  prestige  of  their  great  nations,  govern¬ 
ments,  embassies,  consulates,  etc.,  behind  them  (to  say 
nothing  of  the  unlimited  funds  at  their  disposal)  have  had 
such  little  success  in  Moslem  countries,  is  it  reasonable  to 
blame  the  Armenians,  oppressed,  harried,  tortured,  massa¬ 
cred,  plunged  into  the  depths  of  misery,  for  not  having 
fared  better?  What  respect  could  the  Armenian’s  religion 
inspire  among  his  Moslem  neighbours  who  murdered  his 
bishops  and  priests,  desecrated  his  churches  and  inflicted 
the  most  revolting  insults  upon  the  outward  symbols  of 
his  faith,  while  his  powerful  co-religionists  stood  by  and 
did  nothing?  Under  these  circumstances  what  better 
service  could  the  Armenian  render  his  religion  than  die 
for  it?  In  happier  days,  the  early  Armenian  Christians 
were  largely  instrumental  in  converting  the  Georgians. 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


35 


I  do  not  ask  tributes  for  the  martyrs ;  let  their 
praise  be  sung  by  the  hosts  of  heaven.  Nor  is 
this  a  complaint;  and  it  would  be  a  presumption 
on  my  part  to  assume  the  role  of  critic  or  mentor 
to  leaders  of  religion,  thought  and  learning  in 
great  Christian  countries.  It  is  far  indeed  from 
my  intention  to  assume  such  a  role.  But  these 
are  facts  which  I  contemplate  with  inexpressible 
sorrow,  almost  despair — facts  which  perplex  and 
puzzle  me  and  which  surpass  my  understanding. 
Perhaps  my  judgment  is  dimmed  and  embittered 
by  my  nation’s  sufferings.  If  that  is  so,  is  any 
one  surprised  that  the  Armenian  soul  should  be 
bitter  to-day,  bitter  with  a  bitterness,  anguish 
and  indignation  such  as  the  soul  of  man  has  never 
tasted  before,  or  any  people  can  possibly  ima- 
gine  ? 

Some  papers  speak  of  the  sufferings  of  the 
Armenians  being  equal  to  those  of  the  Belgians. 

Armenians  know,  if  any  one  does,  what  bond¬ 
age  and  suffering  under  the  tyrant’s  heel  mean, 
and  they  yield  to  none  in  their  profound  sympa¬ 
thy  and  admiration  for  heroic  Belgium,  Serbia 
and  the  occupied  parts  of  France.  The  martyr¬ 
dom  of  5000  unoffending  Belgian  civilians  is  a 
horrible  enough  episode,  but  surely  there  is  some 
difference  between  5000  and  600,000  victims,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  600,000  who  were  enslaved, 


36 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


forcibly  converted  to  Islam,  and  driven  in  cara¬ 
vans  of  torture  and  death  to  the  Mesopotamian 
deserts.1  What  is  the  condition  of  these  unfor¬ 
tunates,  and  how  many  have  survived,  must  re¬ 
main  a  dread  secret  of  the  desert  until  the  end  of 
the  war. 

Is  it  because  the  victims  are  Armenians,  mere 
Armenians  so  used  to  massacre,  so  long  aban¬ 
doned  by  Europe  to  the  lust  and  pleasure  of  “the 
Gentle  Turk”?  That  may  be  so  in  the  eyes  of 
men.  But  there  is  God,  and  in  His  eyes  the  life 
and  pain  and  torture  and  death  of  an  Armenian 
child,  woman,  or  man  are  the  same,  exactly  the 
same,  as  those  of  any  other  child,  woman,  or  man 
without  exception. 

1  It  is  some  consolation  to  know,  as  some  reports  say, 
that  the  Arabs  have  treated  these  unfortunates  kindly.  It 
is  an  indication  of — and  a  credit  to — their  superior  civil¬ 
ization. 


Ill 


“the  gentle  and  clean-fighting  turk”  1 

THE  Allies  have  declared  in  their  reply  to 
President  Wilson  that  one  of  their  aims  is 
“the  turning  out  of  Europe  of  the  Ottoman  Em¬ 
pire,  as  decidedly  foreign  to  Western  civiliza¬ 
tion ” 

1  Since  this  chapter  was  written,  the  following  authori¬ 
tative  and  important  piece  of  evidence  on  this  much-de¬ 
bated  subject  has  appeared  in  The  Weekly  Dispatch  of 
March  4,  1917,  from  the  pen  of  General  Sir  O’Moore 
Creagh,  V.C. — 

“  .  .  .  I  have  experience  of  the  Turk.  He  is  a  merci¬ 
less  oppressor,  whose  real  character  is  often  hidden  behind 
a  pleasant  manner,  and  who  is  ready  to  cut  your  throat 
with  a  sort  of  savage  courtesy.  Appeal  to  his  fanaticism, 
and  in  the  trenches  he  has  no  fear  of  death;  but  he  is  very 
subject,  in  case  of  reverse,  to  cowardly  panic,  which  to  a 
considerable  extent  detracts  from  his  worth  as  a  sol¬ 
dier.  .  .  . 

“I  know  some  of  our  men  who  have  mec  the  Turk  both 
on  the  Tigris  and  in  Gallipoli  speak  of  him  as  a  clean 
fighter.  Certainly  when  he  meets  his  match  he  fights 
fairly  enough,  but  when  he  is  an  easy  victor  he  is  remorse¬ 
less  and  merciless;  and  robs,  murders,  and  ravishes  with 
the  unrestrained  savagery  which  lies  at  the  base  of  his 
character.  The  British  prisoners  taken  by  the  Turk  in  the 
present  war  have  been  disgracefully  treated,  and,  as  we 

37 


88  ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 

This  fact  of  the  Turk  being  “decidedly  foreign 
to  Western  civilization,”  affirmed  on  the  author¬ 
ity  and  conviction  of  the  Governments  of  four 
of  the  greatest  and  most  advanced  nations  of 
Europe,  needs  no  further  proof.  Nevertheless 
it  seems  desirable,  in  the  interests  of  truth,  to  en¬ 
deavour  to  dissipate  the  misconception  that  has 
been  created  by  the  extraordinary  myth  of  “the 
clean-fighting  Turk.” 

There  has  been  a  disposition  in  this  country, 
natural  and  intelligible  under  the  circumstances, 
to  attribute  the  recent  (let  us  hope  the  last)  and 
most  terrible  of  the  Armenian  massacres  wholly 
or  largely  to  German  influence.  That  the  Ger¬ 
man  Government  had  it  in  its  power  to  stop  this 
gigantic  crime  if  it  had  so  wished,  there  is  no 
doubt.  It  seems  likely  also  that  the  Turk  applied 
to  his  brutal  scheme  the  method  and  thoroughness 
he  had  learned  from  his  German  ally.  But  seri¬ 
ously  to  assert,  as  some  writers  and  speakers  have 
done,  that  German  influence  instigated  the  massa¬ 
cres,  is  to  shut  one’s  eyes  to  the  Turk’s  record 
ever  since  he  became  known  to  history.  One 
need  only  turn  the  pages  of  his  history — a  verita- 

know,  denied  clothing,  medicine,  and  the  ordinary  neces¬ 
saries  of  life,  starved,  and  even  refused  shelter  in  extremes 
of  heat  and  cold.  The  people  who  are  always  ready  to 
praise  the  Turk  as  a  clean  fighter  should  remember  that 
he  has  a  lot  to  answer  for  in  the  present  war.” 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


39 


ble  chamber  of  horrors — to  convince  oneself  that 
massacre,  outrage,  and  devastation  have  always 
been  congenial  to  the  Turk. 

Without  for  a  moment  wishing  to  absolve  the 
German  Government  of  its  responsibility,  before 
God  and  humanity,  for  not  exerting  its  influence 
to  save  more  than  a  million  absolutely  innocent 
human  beings  from  death,  slow  torture,  and  slav¬ 
ery:  the  fact,  nevertheless,  remains  that  Hulagu, 
Sultan  Selim,  Bayazid  and  Abdul  Hamid  were 
not  under  German  influence,  that  there  were  no 
Germans  at  the  sack  of  Constantinople  or  the 
massacres  of  Bagdad  and  Sivas,  or,  in  more  re¬ 
cent  times,  at  the  butcheries  of  Chios,  Greece, 
Crete,  Batak,  Macedonia,  Sassoon,  Urfa,  or 
Adana.  The  Turk,  in  fact,  has  nothing  to  learn 
from  his  Teutonic  ally  in  “frightfulness”;  he  has 
a  great  deal  to  teach  him.  I  readily  admit  that 
there  are  some  Turks  who  are  gentle  and  good 
men.  Some  of  these  have  risked  good  positions 
and  even  their  lives  to  protect  Armenian  women 
and  children.  But  most  unfortunately  for  us, 
for  humanity  and  for  the  Turks  themselves,  such 
good  Turks  are  few  and  far  between. 

It  is  true  that  orders  for  the  extirpation  of  the 
Armenians  were  issued  from  Constantinople,  but 
can  any  one  imagine  such  revolting  orders  being 
carried  out  by  “gentle  and  clean-fighting”  troops 


40 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


and  people?  I  shall  be  much  surprised  if  any 
unprejudiced  man  or  woman  in  any  civilized 
country  believes  that  any  but  the  Turkish  popu¬ 
lace  and  soldiery  would  be  capable  of  carrying 
out  such  orders.  History  at  any  rate  has  given  us 
no  such  evidence. 

I  believe  that,  under  a  just  and  honest  govern¬ 
ment  and  better  influences,  the  Turkish  peasant 
will,  in  course  of  time,  lose  his  proneness  to 
cruelty,  for  he  has  good  qualities.  But  if  this  war 
is  intended  to  see  the  end  of  tyranny,  oppression, 
brutal  religious  and  political  persecution  and  the 
discontent  and  unrest  that  such  conditions  always 
produce;  if  it  is  to  prevent  the  possibility  of  a 
repetition  of  the  hell  that  the  Turks  have  let  loose 
in  Armenia  since  they  entered  the  war  and  so 
often  before  the  war ;  then  it  is  clear  that  never 
again  must  the  Turk  be  allowed  to  possess  the! 
power  over  other  races,  which  he  has  so  abom-i 
inably  abused  ever  since  he  “hacked  his  way 
through”  to  the  fair,  fertile  and  once  highly  pros¬ 
perous  country  which  he  has  devastated  and  con¬ 
verted  into  a  charnel-house. 

The  Armenians  of  Turkey  had  no  separatist 
aspirations.  They  knew  that  was  impracticable. 
Nothing  would  have  suited  them  better  than  a 
reformed  government  in  Turkey,  that  would  give 
them  security  of  life,  honour  and  property,  the 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


41 


free  development  of  their  national  and  religious 
institutions  and  an  approach  to  equality  with 
Moslems  before  the  law.  On  the  promulgation 
of  the  Constitution,  all  the  Armenian  revolu¬ 
tionary  societies  were  transformed  into  peaceable 
and  orderly  political  parties  as  by  magic.  They 
had  great  hopes  of  achieving  these  aims  and  the 
regeneration  of  the  Ottoman  Empire  from  within 
in  co-operation  with  the  Young  Turks  before  the 
war,  and  they  gave  the  Committee  of  Union  and 
Progress  (was  there  ever  a  more  incongruous 
misnomer  ? )  all  the  support  they  could,  which  was 
by  no  means  negligible ;  but  they  had  not  long  to 
wait  to  be  completely  and  bitterly  disillusioned. 
The  Adana  massacres  gave  their  hopes  the  first 
blow.  The  Armenian  leaders  proved  too  earnest 
and  sincere  democrats  for  the  Committee  leaders 
who,  with  few  exceptions,  were  actuated,  as 
events  proved,  more  by  inordinate  personal  am¬ 
bition  than  the  “liberty”  and  “equality”  which 
they  so  loudly  proclaimed  and  which  have  proved 
such  a  hideous  mockery.  The  chauvinistic  wing 
soon  gained  complete  ascendancy  over  the  party, 
which  resolved  on  the  covert  of  forcible  “Otto- 
manization”  of  all  non-Turk  races  of  the  Empire 
(as  is  proved  by  the  recent  exposures  of  the 
Grand  Sheriff  of  Mecca),  and  ended  by  joining 


42  ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 

\ 

the  Germans  in  the  war  in  the  hope  of  conquering 
Egypt  and  the  Caucasus. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  think  that  Germany  forced 
Turkey  into  the  war  against  her  will  by  the  pres¬ 
ence  of  the  Goeben  and  Breslau .  Those  who  had 
any  knowledge  of  Turkish  affairs  had  no  doubt 
of  the  existence  of  a  military  understanding  be¬ 
tween  Germany  and  Turkey  for  some  years  be¬ 
fore  the  war.  The  arrival  of  a  military  mission 
at  Constantinople  under  Liman  von  Sanders  left 
no  doubt  on  that  point. 

On  the  outbreak  of  the  European  war,  the 
Armenian  Dashnakist  Party  met  in  congress  at 
Erzerum  to  determine  the  attitude  to  be  observed 
by  the  Party  in  relation  to  the  war.  Hearing  of 
this,  the  Young  Turks  forthwith  sent  representa¬ 
tives  to  ascertain  the  attitude  of  the  Party  in  the 
event  of  Turkey  going  to  war  against  Russia. 
(See  Blue-book,  p.  80.)  This  took  place  some 
weeks  before  the  arrival  of  the  Goeben  and  Bres¬ 
lau  at  Constantinople.  Nor  was  the  war  as  un¬ 
popular  with  the  Turkish  masses  at  the  outset 
as  is  thought  by  many.  If  that  were  so  there 
would  have  been  a  revolt  against  the  Young 
Turks,  and  Turkey  would  have  been  detached 
from  the  Central  Powers  long  ago.  It  may  be 
less  popular  now,  because  their  dreams  of  con¬ 
quest  have  been  shattered  and  the  whole  country 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR  4S 

is  suffering.  No  Turk,  Young  or  Old,  had  any 
particular  objection  to  the  prospects  of  the  con¬ 
quest  either  of  Egypt  or  the  Caucasus,  and  many 
of  them  aimed  at  a  Moslem  Triple  Alliance  be¬ 
tween  Turkey,  Persia  and  Afghanistan  under 
German  auspices,  and  even  dreamt  dreams  of  an 
empire  that  would  ultimately  embrace  India  and 
the  whole  of  Northern  Africa!1 

The  Young  Turks  have  tried  their  hand  at  the 
government  of  the  Ottoman  Empire,  and  have 
failed  more  completely  and  proved  infinitely 
more  cruel  and  brutal  than  the  Old  Turks.  Be¬ 
sides  this,  their  betrayal  of  the  Entente  Powers 
and  the  vast  and  unprecedented  crime  which  they 
have  committed  against  humanity  have  left  only 
one  solution  possible  that  holds  out  any  promise 
of  peace,  justice  and  normal  progress  in  the  fu¬ 
ture.  That  one  solution  is,  to  draw  up  a  new 
map  of  the  Ottoman  Empire  on  the  basis  of 
nationality  and  historical  rights,  reparation  in 
proportion  to  services  and  sacrifices  during  the 
war,  and  the  proved  aptitude  of  the  races  con¬ 
cerned  for  progress  and  development  on  the  lines 
of  Western  civilization. 

There  has  long  existed  in  Europe  a  school  of 
politicians  who  have  always  asked:  “If  you  elim¬ 
inate  Turkish  rule  over  the  Turks’  subject  races,. 

1  See  Appendix,  p.  188. 


44 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


what  will  you  put  in  its  place?”  After  what  has 
happened  in  Armenia  and  Syria,  he  would  be  a 
bold  man  or  a  prejudiced  man  who  would  deny 
that  any  change  will  be  an  improvement. 

The  unfitness  of  the  Turk  to  govern  alien,  and 
especially  Christian  peoples  has  been  proved  by 
such  an  overwhelming  accumulation  of  historical 
evidence  and  rivers  of  innocent  Christian  blood, 
that  to  urge  the  contrary  must  appear  like  an 
attempt  to  obscure  the  sun  by  the  palm  of  the 
hand. 

If  this  war  is  to  bring  peace  and  progress  to 
Asia  Minor  instead  of  chronic  anarchy,  blood¬ 
shed  and  devastation  as  in  the  past,  there  must 
be  an  end  of  Turkish  domination  over  alien 
races  in  any  shape  or  form.  By  all  means  give 
the  Turk  the  chance  of  governing  himself  in  the 
provinces  inhabited  purely  by  Turks. 

During  the  Turkish  retreat  from  Thrace  in 
1913,  the  evidence  of  newspaper  correspondents 
was  that  the  Turk  was  leaving  Europe  in  the 
same  state — moral,  material  and  intellectual — 
as  he  entered  it  four  centuries  ago.  The  fact  is, 
that  centuries  of  contact  with  civilization  has 
made  no  difference  to  the  nature  of  the  Turk. 
War  brings  to  the  surface  the  true  nature  of  a 
people  as  nothing  else  can.  The  Turk  has  proved 
by  his  conduct  in  this  war  that  he  is  as  cruel  anc 

I 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


45 


brutal  as  he  was  when  he  first  swooped  down  as 
the  scourge  of  God  in  Asia  Minor  one  thousand 
years  ago.  By  centuries  of  conquest  and  domina¬ 
tion  he  has  acquired  an  attractive  free  and  easy 
outward  manner  which  has  stamped  him  a  “gen¬ 
tleman5’  in  the  eyes  of  European  travellers.  But 
the  same  “gentleman”  who  will  charm  you  with 
his  manner  will  murder  or  enslave  any  number 
of  women  and  children  without  the  slightest 
twinge  of  conscience.  Such  is  the  Turkish  “gen¬ 
tleman.”  The  Turks  are  to-day  proving  their 
gratitude  for  a  hundred  years  of  British  and 
French  support  by  throwing  the  whole  of  their 
man-power  and  resources — largely  built  up  by 
British  and  French  capital — into  the  scale  on  the 
side  of  Germany.  They  have  put  at  the  disposal 
of  Germany  and  held  for  Germany  the  land 
routes  by  which  alone  she  can  hope  to  threaten 
the  British  and  French  colonial  empires.  They 
have  done  their  best  to  do  England  and  her  Allies 
all  the  injury  they  can,  and  have  given  the  ene¬ 
mies  of  England  all  the  help  they  can.  And  still 
the  Turk  and  even  the  Y oung  Turk  have  friends 
and  protectors  in  this  country.1  This,  to  my 

1  See  Sir  Edwin  Pears’s  article  in  The  Contemporary 
Review ,  October  1916.  (I  note  this  with  the  deepest 
regret,  for  Armenians  are  under  a  heavy  debt  of  gratitude 
to  Sir  Edwin  Pears  for  his  generous  and  authoritative 
defence  of  their  cause  in  the  past.) 


46 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


mind,  is  the  most  astonishing  phenomenon  of  the 
whole  war.  It  must  appear  strange  to  thinking 
Moslems  that  there  should  be  found,  in  great  and 
mighty  Christian  countries,  respected  and  prom¬ 
inent  men  who  defend  the  Young  Turks  at  the 
very  moment  when  their  proteges  are  persecut¬ 
ing  and  massacring  their  weak  and  defenceless 
co-religionists  in  countless  thousands.  I  gravely 
doubt  whether  such  an  act  is  calculated  to  enhance 
the  prestige  of  Christianity  in  the  eyes  of  the 
Moslem  world. 

Have  the  apologists  of  the  Turks  ever  put 
themselves  this  question:  “If  under  German  in¬ 
fluence  the  Turks  have  been  capable  of  attempt¬ 
ing  the  cold-blooded  murder  of  a  whole  nation, 
how  is  the  fact  to  be  explained,  that  under  the 
same  influence  they  were  able  to  gain  the  repu¬ 
tation  of  ‘clean  fighters’?” 

The  irony  of  it  all  is,  that  in  a  war  in  which 
more  than  twenty  different  nations  are  engaged, 
the  Turk  and  the  Turk  alone  among  the  belliger¬ 
ents  should  have  gained  the  epithet  of  “clean- 
fighter,”  though,  note  well,  from  one  of  his  ad¬ 
versaries  only.  How  is  this  fact  to  be  explained  ? 
Is  it  seriously  claimed  that  the  Turk  has  proved 
himself,  under  the  test  of  war,  superior  in  morals 
and  chivalry  to  all  the  nations  of  Europe? 

Turkish  mentality  is  not  understood  in  West- 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


47 


ern  Europe.  The  Turk  has  a  fanatical  bravery 
which,  however,  easily  degenerates  into  brutality. 
The  Russians,  Rumanians  and  Serbs  have  fought 
the  Turks  for  centuries.  It  would  be  interesting 
to  have  their  opinion  of  his  “clean-fighting”  qual¬ 
ities.  The  fact  is,  the  Turk  knows  he  may  need 
English  help  again  some  day.  He  knows  that 
there  has  long  existed  in  England  a  school  of 
politicians  which  has  believed  that  British  inter¬ 
ests  in  the  Near  East  will  be  best  served  by  sup¬ 
porting  the  Turk.  He  knows  that  England  has 
millions  of  Mohammedan  subjects  who  have  still 
some  sympathy  for  him  on  religious  grounds,  and 
whose  susceptibilities  Englishmen  are  naturally 
anxious  to  avoid  hurting.  He  also  knows  that 
the  British  soldier  is  a  chivalrous  warrior  who 
gives  full  credit  to  his  adversary  for  any  good 
qualities  he  may  seem  to  possess.  He  under¬ 
stands  the  power  of  public  opinion  in  England. 
He  sees,  in  short,  that  there  is  in  England  a  fer¬ 
tile  and  responsive  psychological  soil  ready  to 
nurture  and  fructify  a  hundred-fold  the  smallest 
show  of  “clean-fighting”  he  may  make.  Accord¬ 
ingly,  the  order  goes  forth  to  the  Turkish  soldier 
to  be  on  his  best  behaviour  whenever  and  wher¬ 
ever  he  is  fighting  British  troops,  and  the  Turkish 
soldier  obeys  with  the  blind  obedience  which  is  his 
chief  characteristic. 


48  ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 

That  is  the  true  explanation  of  the  amazing 
fact  that  so  many — though  not  all — British  offi¬ 
cers  and  soldiers  have  written  or  spoken  of  the 
Turk  as  a  clean-fighter.  It  is  well-known  that 
some  wounded  Australians  who  had  the  misfor¬ 
tune  of  falling  into  the  hands  of  the  Turks  were 
most  brutally  mutilated  in  the  early  part  of  the 
Dardanelles  campaign.  A  wounded  and  gallant 
young  New  Zealander  told  me  at  a  Hampstead 
hospital  that  the  Turks  “put  three  bullets  into 
him,”  while  he  was  being  carried  to  the  rear  of  the 
fighting  line  on  a  stretcher.  (In  case  my  re¬ 
marks  concerning  the  clean-fighting  qualities  of 
the  Turk  should  be  misconstrued  or  misrepre¬ 
sented  as  in  any  way  implying  a  doubt  as  to  the 
evidence  of  British  officers  and  soldiers,  I  wish  to 
say  emphatically,  what  hardly  needs  affirmation, 
that  I  regard  such  evidence  as  absolutely  above 
doubt  or  question.) 

The  Russians  said  in  one  of  their  official  com¬ 
muniques  that  a  number  of  their  wounded  had 
been  mutilated  by  the  Turks. 

Two  Russian  hospital  ships  have  been  delib-j 
erately  torpedoed  by  submarines  manned  by 
Turks  and  flying  the  Turkish  flag. 

I  do  not  of  course  suggest  that  there  are  no 
really  clean-fighting  men  among  the  Turks. 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


49 


There  must  be  many  such.  It  should  be  borne 
in  mind  in  this  connection  that,  in  the  early  stages 
of  the  war,  the  Turkish  army  contained  a  con¬ 
siderable  sprinkling  of  Christians — Greeks,  Ar¬ 
menians,  Syrians,  etc.  But  to  label  the  Turks 
as  such  and  as  a  whole  as  clean  fighters  and  gentle 
folk  is  to  admit  the  success  of  the  most  subtle 
propagandist  make-believe  of  the  war  and  the 
biggest  hoax  ever  played  off  by  Oriental  cunning 
upon  a  chivalrous  and  unsuspecting  adversary. 

Armenians  have  known  the  Turk  for  centu¬ 
ries.  They  have  known  him  as  he  is,  not  as  he 
affects  to  be  in  the  presence  of  a  European,  and 
they  can  claim  credit  for  some  knowledge  of  the 
subject.  I  venture  to  predict  that  there  is  severe 
disillusionment  in  store  for  those  who  still  believe 
in  the  genuineness  of  Turkish  “clean-fighting” 
and  “chivalry,”  when  the  British  prisoners  in 
Turkey  return.  Strange  indeed  must  be  this 
Turkish  conception  of  chivalry  to  sanction  the 
enslavement  and  slaughter  of  women  and  chil¬ 
dren  in  hundreds  of  thousands,  instead  of  pro¬ 
tecting  them  and  their  honour  as  the  ordinary 
code  of  chivalry  demands. 

A  Reuter  telegram  from  Cairo  published  in 
The  Daily  Chronicle  of  February  13,  1917,  con¬ 
tained  the  following — 


50 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


“It  is  learnt  on  reliable  authority  that  the 
British,  French,  and  Russian  prisoners  who  are 
employed  on  the  construction  of  the  new  line  are 
treated  most  roughly  by  the  Germans  and  Turks, 
and  that  a  large  number  are  falling  ill  from 
dysentery  and  filling  the  military  hospitals  at 
Aleppo.  Those  who  have  not  been  attacked  by 
dysentery  have  fallen  victims  to  other  diseases, 
resulting  from  bad  food,  rough  treatment,  and 
overwork. 

“One  of  the  tricks  adopted  by  the  Germans 
and  Turks,  in  order  to  throw  dust  in  the  eyes  of 
the  British  regarding  the  treatment  of  prisoners, 
was  the  honour  paid  to  General  Townshend,  who 
was  returned  his  sword  and  accorded  the  best 
treatment  possible.  They  brought  him  to  Con¬ 
stantinople,  and  made  him  write  a  letter  of 
thanks  for  the  good  treatment  he  and  his  men 
had  received  at  the  hands  of  the  Turks. 

“General  Townshend  did  not  know  at  the  time 
he  wrote  this  letter  what  misery  and  hardship 
were  awaiting  his  unhappy  troops.” 

t 

I  may  here  quote  in  support  of  my  contention 
one  of  the  foremost  living  European  authorities 
on  Near  Eastern  affairs,  and  one  who  certainly 
will  not  be  suspected  of  anti-Turkish  prejudices 
— I  mean  Colonel  Sir  Mark  Sykes,  M.P.  Ad- 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


51 


dressing  a  meeting  at  Kew  on  January  17,  1917 
(I  quote  from  The  Near  East  of  January  19, 
1917),  Sir  Mark  said — 

“The  Turk,  who  in  the  last  ten  years  had 
thrown  back  to  the  primitive  Turanian  Con¬ 
queror,  was  not  content  with  dominating,  but  was 
now  engaged  in  exterminating  the  Armenian,  the 
Syrian  Christian,  and  the  Arabs,  and  was  even 
now  beginning  to  bully  the  Jews.  The  Turk 
had  overthrown  Islam  as  Prussia  had  overthrown 
Christianity.  Prussia  had  replaced  God  by  Thor 
and  the  Cross  by  his  hammer.  The  Turk  had 
replaced  Mohammed  by  Oghuz  and  Allah  by  the 
‘White  Wolf’  of  the  primitive  Turks.  No  belief 
was  to  be  placed  in  that  cloak  of  chivalry  under 
which  in  exceptional  cases  the  Turk  tried  to  hide 
his  abominable  acts.1  He  might  treat  General 

1  In  reply  to  a  question  by  Colonel  Yate  in  the  House  of 
Commons  on  February  12,  1917:  “Mr.  Hope  said  re¬ 
peated  representation  had  been  made  to  the  Turkish  Gov¬ 
ernment  to  allow  U.  S.  representatives  to  visit  the  camps, 
but  up  to  now  without  success.  Efforts,  however,  would  be 
continued.  Information  had  reached  the  Government  that 
the  conditions  under  which  officers  were  interned  were 
fairly  satisfactory,  but  the  condition  of  other  prisoners 
was  deplorable.” — Evening  Standard. 

Truth  says,  in  its  issue  of  February  21,  1917 :  “I  have 
in  my  possession  a  letter  written  last  autumn  by  a  British 
Army  officer,  one  of  the  defenders  of  Kut,  who  was  then 
at  a  place  called  Vozga,  160  miles  from  Tigris  Valley 


52 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


Townshend  well;  but  how  was  he  treating  the 
thousands  of  Indians  and  Englishmen  in  his 
hands?  If  it  were  possible  that  the  Teuton- 
Turanian  federation  of  violence  could  win  this 
war  it  would  be  twenty  generations  before  man¬ 
kind  regained  its  liberty.” 


railhead.  The  unfortunate  prisoner  complains  bitterly  of 
the  privations  which  he  and  others  have  to  endure  at  the 
hands  of  the  Turks/’ 


IV 


ANGLO-RUSSIAN  FRIENDSHIP  A  VITAE  NECESSITY  FOR 
PEACE  AND  PROGRESS  IN  ASIA - MOSLEMS  AND  TURK¬ 
ISH  RULE - ARMENIANS  PROGRESSIVE  AND  DEMO¬ 

CRATIC  BY  TEMPERAMENT 

THE  exaggerated  panegyrics  on  the  virtues 
of  the  Turk,  while  the  Turk  is  at  war  with 
England  and  her  Allies  and  Turkish  emissaries 
are  busy  making  all  the  mischief  they  can  among 
loyal  subjects  of  the  British  Empire,  exploiting 
religion  as  a  weapon  of  squalid  intrigue,  point 
to  the  existence  of  influences  which  have  been  at 
work  ever  since.  Turkey  joined  the  war,  to  screen 
from  public  view  and  to  palliate  the  enormity  of 
Turkish  perfidy  in  making  common  cause  with 
England’s  enemies  in  the  hour  of  England’s  diffi¬ 
culty.  These  same  influences  seem  to  regard  with 
disfavour  the  growth  of  Anglo-Russian  friend¬ 
ship  and  would  apparently  not  be  sorry  to  see 
some  hitch  or  other  occur  that  would  weaken  or 
endanger  the  permanence  of  that  friendship. 

This  may  be  an  unfounded  assumption,  and  I 
hope  it  is.  But  if  these  pro-Turkish  and  anti- 

53 


54 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


Russian  influences  exist  in  fact,  and  gain  enough 
strength  to  exercise  any  influence  on  the  course 
of  events  after  the  war,  it  will  be  a  calamity  for 
the  smaller  nations  of  the  Near  and  Middle  East, 
and  in  fact  for  all  Asia.  It  will  be  a  hindrance 
and  a  deterrent  to  the  tranquillity  and  develop¬ 
ment  that  has  been  so  long  denied  to  these  re¬ 
gions.  Close  and  cordial  friendship  between 
England  and  Russia  are  almost  as  indispensable 
a  condition  of  life  and  growth  and  progress  to 
these  backward  countries  as  light  and  heat.  It  is 
scarcely  for  me  to  say  that  it  is  also  necessary  for 
the  future  peace  of  Asia  and  the  world.  The  un¬ 
natural  and  unfounded  mutual  distrust  that  shad¬ 
owed  A  nglo-Russian  relations  throughout  almost 
the  whole  of  the  past  century  has  been  chiefly 
responsible  for  the  woes  and  miseries  of  the  peo¬ 
ples  of  the  Near  East,  Moslems  as  well  as  Chris¬ 
tians.  It  has  kept  back  the  clock  of  progress  and 
civilization  for  at  least  fifty  years.  We  have  felt 
its  effect  in  our  daily  lives  and  regard  any  pros¬ 
pect  of  its  return  with  the  utmost  apprehension 
and  regret.  Pan-Turanian  intrigues  under  the 
cloak  of  Pan-Islamism  will  not  end  with  the  war. 
They  will  be  continued  after  the  war  by  their  pro¬ 
tagonists,  whose  chief  concern  is,  not  the  interests 
of  the  Mohammedan  religion,  but  the  unscrupu¬ 
lous  exploitation  of  religious  sentiment  for  per- 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


55 


sonal  ends,  and  the  disturbance  of  the  tranquillity 
and  ordered  government  which  in  the  present 
chaotic  state  of  these  countries  are  only  possible 
under  the  strong  and  just  arm  of  British,  Rus¬ 
sian,  or  French  protection.  Any  weakening  in 
Anglo-Russian  friendship  would  give  these  in¬ 
triguers  their  chance,  of  which  they  would  not 
be  slow  to  take  the  fullest  advantage,  with  in¬ 
jurious  consequences  to  the  countries  concerned 
and  to  the  general  interests  of  peace.  The  best 
elements  of  Islam,  and  especially  the  peasant 
populations  which  form  the  vast  majority  of  the 
Moslem  world,  know  and  have  proved  by  their 
loyalty  that  they  have  nothing  to  fear  from  Brit¬ 
ain,  Russia  and  France,  who  have  always  not 
only  respected,  but  fostered  their  religious  inter¬ 
ests  and  given  them,  in  addition,  the  inestimable 
blessings  of  freedom,  justice,  security  and  pros¬ 
perity  such  as  they  could  never  expect  to  enjoy 
under  any  other  regime. 

It  is  idle  to  pretend  that  any  subject  race  loves 
any  form  of  domination  for  its  own  sake.  But 
many  races  and  countries  in  Asia  and  Africa  are 
so  situated  that  independence  is  beyond  the 
hounds  of  practicability.  Any  change  would 
result  in  an  exchange  of  one  domination  for 
another.  Some  forms  of  domination  are  sin¬ 
cerely  welcomed  because,  as  against  the  evil  of 


56 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


domination,  they  have  not  only  conferred  upon 
the  peoples  under  their  rule  benefits  and  blessings 
which  they  themselves  could  not  possibly  have 
achieved,  but  have  allowed  them  freedom  of  de¬ 
velopment  on  their  national  lines.  Such  in  vary¬ 
ing  degrees  is  the  nature  of  British,  French, 
Russian,  and,  I  may  add,  Dutch  dominion  over 
the  alien  races  under  their  rule.  What  has 
Turkish  domination  been  to  its  subject  races? 
An  unmitigated  curse  to  Christian,  Moslem  and 
Jew  alike,  with  this  difference,  that  while  the 
Moslem  and  Jew  have  been  reduced  by  merciless 
taxation  and  robbery  to  extreme  poverty,  the 
Christian  races  have  been  bled  almost  to  death. 
The  Turks  have  deliberately  fostered  the  crim-  i 
inal  propensities  of  large  sections  of  their  people 
and  encouraged  their  free  indulgence  to  check 
the  growth  and  progress  of  the  moral  and  civiliz¬ 
ing  elements  in  their  dominions.  If  some  of  the 
Moslems  of  India,  Egypt  or  Tunis,  whose  sym¬ 
pathy  with  the  Turks  on  religious  grounds  every 
one  will  understand  and  respect,  would  live  under 
Turkish  rule  for  a  few  months,  I  have  no  doubt 
they  would  be  completely  cured  of  their  love  for 
the  Turk  as  such,  hasten  back  to  their  homes  and 
beg  the  British  and  the  French  to  remain  in  their 
countries  for  ever.  Similarly,  if  it  were  possible 
for  the  most  rabid  pro-Turks  in  this  or  any  Eurq- 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


57 


pean  country  to  live  some  time  under  the  Turk, 
disguised  as  Armenians  or  Syrians,  they  would 
also  be  cured  and  more  than  cured  of  their  ad¬ 
miration  for  the  Turk;  then  only  would  they 
come  to  understand  his  real  nature. 

The  following  account  of  the  experiences  of 
some  Indian  pilgrims  at  Kerbela  at  the  outbreak 
of  war,  which  appeared  in  The  Times  of  June  6, 
1916,  bears  out  my  contention — 

“The  Bombay  Government  have  published  the 
story  of  an  Indian  Moslem  pilgrim,  Zakir  Hu¬ 
sain,  who  recently  escaped  from  Kerbela  (Bagh¬ 
dad  Vilayet),  whither  he  went  on  pilgrimage 
with  his  mother  and  sister  in  the  summer  of  1914. 

“Zakir  Husain  states  that  after  the  outbreak 
of  war  all  routes  homewards  were  blocked,  and 
the  many  Indian  pilgrims  at  Kerbela  were  sub¬ 
jected  to  the  utmost  discomfort  and  cruelty. 
The  Turkish  authorities  issued  orders  that  the 
goods  and  women  of  Indians  were  the  legal  prop¬ 
erty  of  those  who  plundered  them.  Their  houses 
were  searched,  their  goods  taken,  and  dozens  of 
Indians  were  arrested  and  deported  to  the  Alep¬ 
po  side,  while  their  families  and  children  were  left 
in  Kerbela. 

“Throughout  these  fourteen  months,”  he  con¬ 
tinued,  “we  never  got  meals  more  than  once  a 


58 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


day.  We  could  not  get  any  work,  and  conse¬ 
quently  we  had  to  beg  from  door  to  door  in  order 
to  get  a  few  scraps  of  bread  to  eat,  and  the  state 
of  the  women  and  children  was  worse  even  than 
that  of  the  men.  For  a  man  to  be  an  Indian  was 
considered  a  sufficient  reason  by  Turks  to  torture 
and  imprison  him.  We  protested  that  we  were 
Moslems,  but  they  never  paid  heed.  They  them¬ 
selves  are  no  Moslems,  and  do  not  act  according 
to  the  precepts  of  Islam.  According  to  what  I 
heard,  the  Indians  in  Nejef,  Kazimain,  and 
Baghdad  have  alsc  been  treated  in  the  same  cruel 
way  as  we  were;  hundreds  have  been  deported 
and  their  houses  pillaged.” 

The  following  from  The  Times  of  December 
26,  1916,  is  another  illustration  of  the  way  Turks 
treat  Moslems  of  another  race  who  refuse  to  be¬ 
come  the  blind  slaves  of  their  political  madness — 

“Emir  Faisal,  commander  of  the  Arabian 
forces  in  the  vicinity  of  Medina,  has  telegraphed 
to  Mecca  stating  that  the  Turks  have  hanged  and 
crucified  and  employed  every  species  of  barbarity 
against  the  population  of  Medina.” 

Turn  now  from  that  picture  to  the  following 
appeal  made  to  Armenians  by  one  of  their  princi- 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


59 


pal  Tiflis  daily  papers,  Mschak  (Labourer),  of 
May  16,  1915— 

“To-day  the  Moslem  Benevolent  Society  is 
organizing  a  collection  for  building  and  main¬ 
taining  a  shelter  for  the  children  of  the  (Moslem) 
refugees.  War  causes  suffering  to  the  popula¬ 
tion  of  the  country  without  distinction  of  race  or 
creed.  Moslems  as  well  as  Christians  have  to 
face  the  effects  of  the  war,  therefore  the  scheme 
of  the  Moslem  Benevolent  Society  to  establish  a 
shelter  for  the  children  of  Moslem  refugees  is 
deserving  of  all  sympathy  and  support.  We  are 
convinced  that  the  Armenian  community  also, 
having  in  mind  the  universal  idea  of  humanity, 
will  take  part  in  the  collection  and  do  their  duty 
as  a  humane  people  and  good  neighbours.” 

These  incidents,  small  in  themselves,  bring  into 
strong  relief  the  diff  erence  between  the  mentality 
and  degree  of  civilization  of  the  two  races.  The 
Armenian  appeal  on  behalf  of  refugee  Moslem 
children  at  a  time  when  one  half  of  their  own  race 
was  in  the  throes  of  the  most  ferocious  of  the 
numerous  attacks  made  upon  its  existence,  is 
also  incidentally  a  reply,  more  trenchant  than  the 
most  eloquent  argument  in  words,  to  those  pro- 
Turks  who  have  from  time  to  time  expressed 


60 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


fears  for  the  rights  of  the  Turks,  Kurds,  Tcher 
kesses,  Kizilbashis,  etc.,  in  an  autonomous  Ar< 
menia.  Such  a  fear  is  either  due  to  ignorance  o 
the  characteristics  of  the  races  concerned,  or  t 
prejudice.  It  is  inconceivable  that  any  Armeniar 
Government  would  tolerate,  much  less  impose 
upon  orderly  and  good  citizens,  an  injustice 
which  Armenians  have  themselves  endured  anc 
struggled  against  for  generations,  and  which  is 
for  that  reason,  abhorrent  to  their  very  nature 
A  study  of  the  Armenian  Church  organizatior 
will  prove  to  the  most  sceptical  that  the  Armeniar 
temperament  is  essentially  democratic.  In  the 
smallest  village  the  candidate  for  priesthood  must 
be  elected  by  a  vote  of  the  inhabitants  before  he 
can  be  ordained  by  the  bishop  of  the  diocese 
The  Armenian  deputies  in  the  Russian  State 
Duma  as  well  as  the  late  members  of  the  Otto¬ 
man  Parliament  are  and  were  supporters  of  the 
Progressives.  Armenians  who  have  risen  to  posi¬ 
tions  of  influence  in  the  service  of  foreign  coun¬ 
tries  have  invariably  used  their  influence  in  the 
cause  of  progress.  General  Loris  Melikoff  as 
Minister  of  the  Interior  had  actually  prepared  a 
scheme  for  the  reform  of  the  Government  of 
Russia  when  his  Imperial  Master,  the  Czar  Alex¬ 
ander  II,  died,  and  the  scheme  was  shelved. 
Nubar  Pasha,  the  famous  Egyptian- Armenian 


* 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


61 


statesman,  for  many  years  Prime  Minister,  was 
largely  responsible  for  the  abolition  of  the  corvee 
in  Egypt,  and  the  introduction  of  many  other 
reforms.  The  writer  of  Nubar  Pasha’s  biog¬ 
raphy  in  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica ,  referring 
to  his  substitution  of  Mixed  Courts  in  place  of 
the  “Capitulations,”  says  (Eleventh  Ed.,  Vol. 
19,  p.  843),  “That  in  spite  of  the  jealousies  of 
all  the  Powers,  in  spite  of  the  opposition  of  the 
Porte,  he  should  have  succeeded,  places  him  at 
once  in  the  first  rank  of  statesmen  of  his  period.” 
Prince  Malcolm  Khan,  for  some  years  Persian 
Minister  in  London,  sowed  the  first  seeds  of  con¬ 
stitutional  government  in  Persia,  for  the  defence 
of  which  another  Armenian,  Yeprem  Khan,  laid 
down  his  life  while  leading  the  constitutional 
struggle  against  Mohamed  Ali  Shah.  The  first 
constitution  of  the  Ottoman  Empire,  known  as 
the  Midhat  Constitution,  was  largely  the  work  of 
Midhat  Pasha’s  Armenian  Under- Secretary, 
Odian  EfFendi.  These  are  but  a  few  outstand¬ 
ing  instances.  It  must  appear  inconceivable  to 
right-minded  men  that  a  race  with  such  a  past 
record,  achieved  under  all  sorts  of  handicaps,  will 
either  establish  a  regime  of  tyranny  over  other 
races  or  prove  incapable  of  self-government  after 
a  transition  period  under  European  advisers,  as 
is  alleged  by  some. 


y 


ARMENIA  AS  A  PEACE  PROBLEM - VIEWS  OF  THE  “MAN¬ 
CHESTER  guardian”  and  the  “spectator” - CAN 

ARMENIANS  STAND  ALONE  AMONG  THE  KURDS? - 

AMERICAN  OPINION  AND  THE  FUTURE  OF  ARMENIA 

ALTHOUGH  the  Allies  have  declared  in 
their  reply  to  President  Wilson  that  one  of 
their  aims  is  “the  liberation  of  the  peoples  who 
now  lie  beneath  the  murderous  tyranny  of  the 
Turks,”  no  official  or  authoritative  statement  has 
yet  been  made  by  the  Allied  Governments  as  re¬ 
gards  the  precise  future  status  of  Armenia.  Mr. 
Asquith  in  his  Guildhall  speech  spoke  of  “repara¬ 
tion  and  redemption.”  M.  Briand  in  a  letter  to 
M.  Louis  Martin,  Senator  of  the  Var,  published 
in  the  Courier  du  Parlement  (Paris)  of  Novem¬ 
ber  12, 1916,  says:  “When  the  hour  for  legitimate 
reparation  shall  have  struck,  France  will  not  for¬ 
get  the  terrible  trials  of  the  Armenians,  and,  in 
accord  with  her  Allies,  she  will  take  the  necessary 
measures  to  ensure  for  Armenia  a  life  of  peace 
and  progress.”  M.  Anatole  France,  in  his  speech 
at  the  great  “Homage  a  TArmenie”  meeting  in 
the  Sorbonne  in  April  1916,  used  these  words: 

62 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


63 


“L’Armenie  expire,  mais  elle  renaitra.  Le  pen 
de  sang  qui  lui  reste  est  un  sang  precieux  dont 
sortira  une  posterite  heroique.  Un  peuple  qui  ne 
veut  pas  mourir  ne  meurt  pas.  Apres  la  victoire 
de  nos  armees,  qui  combattent  pour  la  liberte,  les 
Allies  auront  de  grands  devoirs  a  remplir.  Et 
le  plus  sacre  de  ces  devoirs  sera  de  rendre  la  vie 
aux  peuples  martyrs,  a  la  Belgique,  a  la  Serbie. 
Alors  ils  assureront  la  surete  et  l’independance 
de  l’Armenie.  Penches  sur  elle,  ils  lui  diront: 
‘Ma  soeur,  leve  toi !  ne  souffre  plus.  Tu  es  desor- 
mais  libre  de  vivre  selon  ton  genie  et  foil’ m 

M.  Paul  Deschanel,  the  President  of  the 
French  Senate,  and  M.  Painleve,  Minister  of 
Public  Instruction,  spoke  in  more  or  less  similar 
terms. 

The  most  recent  authoritative  reference  to  Ar¬ 
menia — and  one  which  is  of  special  importance, 
coming  as  it  does  from  a  member  of  the  Inner 

1  “Armenia  is  dying,  but  she  will  be  born  again — the 
little  blood  that  is  left  to  her  is  the  precious  blood  from 
which  will  arise  a  heroic  posterity.  A  people  that  refuses 
to  die  will  not  die.  After  the  victory  of  our  armies,  which 
are  fighting  for  justice  and  liberty,  the  Allies  will  have 
great  duties  to  fulfil.  And  the  most  sacred  of  these  duties 
will  be  to  bring  back  to  life  the  martyred  peoples,  Belgium 
and  Serbia.  Then  they  will  assure  the  security  and  inde¬ 
pendence  of  Armenia.  Bending  over  her  they  will  say  to 
her:  ‘Rise,  sister!  suffer  no  more.  Henceforth  you  are 
free  to  live  according  to  your  genius  and  your  faith!’  ” 


64 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


Cabinet  or  War  Council — is  Mr.  Arthur  Hen 
derson’s  statement  in  his  conversation  with  thf 
correspondent  of  the  New  York  Tribune ,  rei 
ported  in  The  Times  of  January  8,  1916,  as  fol 
lows:  “Speaking  of  the  part  of  Turkey  in  th< 
war,  Mr.  Henderson  said  that  though  Armenia! 
atrocities  were  not  much  talked  about  here,  thev 
had  undoubtedly  made  a  deep  impression  or 
the  minds  of  the  working  population,  who,  h< 
thought,  were  determined  that  never  again  should 
a  Christian  nation  be  under  the  yoke  of  th< 
Turk.”  These  are  comforting  words  indeed  t< 
Armenians,  as  were  those  of  Mr.  Asquith  at  thq, 
Guildhall.  Nothing  could  give  the  Armenia! 
people  more  comfort  and  hope  for  the  futurr 
than  this  assurance  of  the  British  working  man’: 
sympathy — of  which  they  never  had  any  doubt— 
and  his  determination  to  see  them  freed  from  th< 
Turkish  yoke  once  and  for  all. 

But  here  again  Mr.  Henderson — no  doubt  fol 
very  good  reasons — gave  no  intimation  of  th< 
intentions  of  the  British  or  Allied  Government 
concerning  the  new  status  of  Armenia  after  it 
liberation  from  the  Turkish  yoke. 

It  has  been  suggested  that  American  opinioi 
would  favour  annexation  by  Russia  as  a  mean: 
of  putting  an  end  to  Turkish  atrocities  and  mis 
government  of  Armenia.  This  reading  of  Amer 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


65 


[.  ican  opinion  is  not  supported  by  President  Wil- 
e  son’s  statement  in  his  historic  speech  to  the  Senate 
:■  that  “no  right  anywhere  exists  to  hand  peoples 
|.  from  sovereignty  to  sovereignty  as  if  they  were 
e  property.”  All  the  Allied  countries,  and  prob- 
n»  ably  all  neutrals,  are  determined  to  see  the  end 
y  of  the  Turkish  reign  of  terror  in  Armenia.  But 
n  annexation  by  Russia  or  any  other  Great  Power, 
t  before  the  blood  is  dry  of  hundreds  of  thousands 
i  of  Armenians  sacrificed  for  their  faith  and  pas- 
e>  sionate  adherence  to  their  ideal  of  nationality, 
0(  must  seem  particularly  unjust  to  all  fair-minded 
ff  men  in  all  countries,  especially  the  great  Ameri- 
nj  can  democracy,  who  themselves  put  an  end  to 
e  misgovernment  of  a  much  milder  kind  in  Cuba, 
s  but  did  not  annex  it.  Indeed,  having  herself, 
.  jointly  with  her  Allies,  solemnly  laid  down  the 
e  “recognition  of  the  principle  of  nationalities”  as 
one  of  the  terms  of  peace  stated  in  the  Allied 
r  Note  to  President  Wilson,  it  seems  unthinkable 
e  that  Russia,  on  her  part,  would  entertain  the  in- 
s  tention  of  annexing ,  and  especially  of  annexing 
s  a  country  and  people  who  have  paid  a  terrible 
price  largely  on  account  of  their  sympathy  with 
!  and  support  of  the  Allied  cause,  and  rendered 
s  services  the  value  of  which  Russia  herself  has 
.  generously  recognized. 

It  is  argued  in  some  quarters  that  the  Anne- 


66 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


nian  highlands  are  a  strategic  necessity  to  Russia. 
There  is  a  “scrap  of  paper”  ring  in  such  an  argu¬ 
ment,  and  I  for  one  cannot  believe  that  the 
justice-loving  Russian  people  would  allow  such 
considerations  to  override  a  solemn  pledge  and 
the  principle  of  common  justice.  An  Allied  pro-! 
tectorate  with  Russia  acting  as  their  mandatory 
would  place  these  strategically  important  regions 
under  practically  as  effective  a  Russian  control 
as  outright  annexation,  while  it  would  have  the 
additional  advantages  of  giving  real  effect  to  the 
“recognition  of  the  principle  of  nationalities,” 
and  avoiding  injustice,  injury  and  affront  to 
the  national  sentiment  of  a  people  which  has  en¬ 
dured  such  grievous  sufferings  and  sacrifices  toi 
uphold  that  sentiment. 

As  I  write,  two  important  references  to  the 
future  of  Armenia  have  appeared  in  the  Press. 
One  in  the  Manchester  Guardian — that  old  and 
constant  champion  of  wronged  and  suffering 
humanity — quoted  by  The  Times  of  December 
80,  1916,  as  follows:  “Another  word  remains — 
Armenia — a  word  of  ghastly  horror,  carrying  the 
memory  of  deeds  not  done  in  the  world  since 
Christ  was  born — a  country  swept  clear  by  the 
wholesale  murder  of  its  people.  To  Turkey  that 
country  must  never  and  under  no  circumstances 
go  back.  .  .  .” 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR  67 

l  .  The  other  reference  is  made  by  the  Spectator 
in  its  issue  of  December  30,  in  a  leading  article 
it  entitled  “The  Allied  Terms.”  It  says — 

d  “The  process  of  freeing  nationalities  from  op- 
>  pression  must  be  applied  organically  to  the 
1  Turkish  Empire.  The  Armenians,  or  what  re- 
mains  of  the  race,  whose  agonized  calls  for  help 
}1  and  mercy  have  been  heard  even  through  the  din 
ie  of  the  present  war,  will  probably  have  to  be 
ie  placed  under  the  tutelage  of  Russia.  They  could 
n  not  stand  alone  among  the  Kurds.” 

;g  ! 

i-  If  by  “Russian  tutelage”  the  Spectator 
o  means  the  setting  up  of  a  self-governing  Ar¬ 
menia  under  Russian  Suzerainty,  that  would 
e  amount,  in  my  opinion,  to  the  approximate 
5,  realization  of  the  hopes  and  aspirations  of  the 
i  Armenian  people,  provided  that  by  “Armenia” 
g  is  understood  the  six  vilayets  and  Cilicia ;  pro- 
r  vided  also  that  Great  Britain  and  France  re- 
-  tained  the  rights  of  Protecting  Powers  as  in  the 
e  case  of  Greece.  Anything  short  of  this,  any  par- 
e  celling  out  of  Armenia,  either  by  annexation  or 
e  “tutelage”  of  different  parts  under  different 
t  Powers,  would  not  only  be  irreconcilable  with  the 
s  “recognition  of  the  principle  of  nationalities” 
which  the  Allies  have  solemnly  declared  to  be  one 


68 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


of  their  principal  aims  and  terms  of  peace;  it 
would  imply  an  outrage  upon  the  ideal  of  nation¬ 
ality  which  is  the  ruling  passion  of  Armenians 
everywhere.  Lynch,  the  great  Armenian  author¬ 
ity,  has  called  the  Armenians  “the  strongest  na¬ 
tionalists  in  the  world.”  This  ideal  of  nationality 
has  grown  stronger,  more  alive  and  resolute  than 
ever  by  their  services  and  unimaginable  suffer¬ 
ings  and  sacrifices  in  the  war.  “The  little  blood 
that  is  left  them”  has  become  doubly  and  trebly 
precious  to  the  survivors.  They  rightly  feel  that 
they  have  established,  and  more  than  established, 
their  title  to  autonomy  and  a  strong  claim  upon 
the  whole-hearted  support  of  the  Allied  Powers 
to  enable  them  to  stand  on  their  feet  again  and 
make  a  fair  start  on  the  road  to  nationhood. 
If  Armenia  is  cut  up  and  parcelled  out  without 
regard  for  this  fervent  living  sentiment  of  Ar¬ 
menian  nationalism,  and  their  high  hopes  and 
expectations  are  dashed  to  the  ground,  it  will 
conceivably  engender  in  all  Armenians  a  deep 
sense  of  wrong  and  injustice,  an  intense  discon¬ 
tent  with  the  new  order  of  things,  that  are  not 
likely  to  conduce  to  that  contentment  and  that 
smoothness  of  relations  between  the  governors 
and  the  governed  that  are  the  essentials  and  the 
fundamental  preliminary  steps  towards  setting 


I 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


69 


these  much-troubled  regions  on  the  road  towards 
good  government,  progress  and  civilization. 

The  “principle  of  nationalities”  and  of  “gov¬ 
ernment  by  the  consent  of  the  governed”  will  be 
applied  all  along  the  line :  Belgium,  Alsace-Lor¬ 
raine,  Serbia,  Poland,  Bohemia,  Transylvania, 
Arabia,  Syria,  Palestine,  will  have  restored  to 
them  or  will  be  granted  the  forms  of  govern¬ 
ment  most  acceptable  to  the  peoples  concerned. 
These  true  and  righteous  principles,  which 
will  herald  the  dawn  of  universal  justice  and 
morality  in  the  treatment  of  their  weaker  breth¬ 
ren  by  the  Great  Powers  of  Europe,  will  cease 
to  operate  only  when  Armenia  comes  to  be 
dealt  with.  Armenia  alone,  who  has  suffered  the 
most  tragic,  the  most  grievous  and  heartrending 
Calvary,  shall  be  denied  an  Easter.  Why?  Be¬ 
cause  the  Armenian  people  have  lost  too  much 
blood;  because  they  have  paid  too  high  a  price 
for  their  fidelity  to  their  faith,  the  preservation 
of  their  distinctive  national  life  and  their  strong 
support  of  the  Allied  cause.  That  would  be  an 
unspeakably  cruel  and  bitter  climax  to  the  un¬ 
ending  nightmare  of  Turkish  tyranny,  the  Great 
Tragedy  and  martyrdom  of  the  Armenian  peo¬ 
ple.  It  will  be  nothing  less  than  a  confirmation 
of  the  death  sentence  passed  by  Abdul  Hamid 


70 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


and  the  Young  Turks  on  the  ideal  of  Armenian 
nationality. 

Let  those  who  speak  lightly  of  annexation  by 
Russia  put  themselves  in  the  place  of  the  tens  of 
thousands  of  Armenians  who  have  lost  wife  and 
children,  sons,  brothers,  fathers,  near  or  distant 
relatives,  both  in  massacre  as  well  as  in  what  they 
understood  to  be  a  sacred  struggle  for  liberty,  to 
say  nothing  of  their  complete  economic  ruin. 
They  would  be  much  more  or  much  less  than 
human  if  they  did  not  feel  a  deep  and  smarting 
sense  of  wrong  at  seeing  all  their  appalling  sacri¬ 
fices  and  important  services  result  in  a  mere  ex¬ 
change  of  the  Kaimakam  for  the  Chinovnik .  It 
is  far  indeed  from  my  purpose  to  put  the  two 
types  of  official  and  the  respective  systems  of 
government  they  represent  on  the  same  level. 
They  differ  as  day  from  night.  In  my  opinion 
and  to  my  knowledge  the  vast  majority  of  Ar¬ 
menians  will  welcome .  Russian  suzerainty  with 
sincere  satisfaction.  But,  after  the  ordeal  of 
blood  and  fire  through  which  they  have  passed, 
they  must  feel,  as  I  believe  they  do  feel  with 
ample  justification,  that  they  have  a  right  to  a 
voice  and  a  liberal  measure  of  participation  in  the 
government  of  their  own  country. 

I  cannot  do  better  than  quote  here  a  passage 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


71 


from  Mr.  Gladstone’s  great  speech  on  the  Treaty 
of  Berlin,  which  is  applicable  to  Armenia,  and 
than  which  there  could  be  no  wiser,  more  just  or 
authoritative  guidance  for  the  formation  of  a 
sound  and  just  view  on  the  Armenian  and  kin¬ 
dred  problems — 

“My  meaning,  Sir,  was  that,  for  one,  I  utterly 
repelled  the  doctrine  that  the  power  of  Turkey 
is  to  be  dragged  to  the  ground  for  the  purpose 
of  handing  over  the  Dominion  that  Turkey  now 
exercises  to  some  other  great  State,  be  that  State 
either  Russia  or  Austria  or  even  England.  In 
my  opinion  such  a  view  is  utterly  false,  and  even 
ruinous,  and  has  been  the  source  of  the  main  diffi¬ 
culties  in  which  the  Government  have  been  in¬ 
volved,  and  in  which  they  have  involved  the  coun¬ 
try.  I  hold  that  those  provinces  of  the  Turkish 
Empire,  which  have  been  so  cruelly  and  unjustly 
ruled,  ought  to  be  regarded  as  existing,  not  for 
the  sake  of  any  other  Power  whatever,  but  for 
the  sake  of  the  populations  by  whom  they  are  in¬ 
habited.  The  object  of  our  desire  ought  to  be 
the  development  of  those  populations  on  their 
own  soil,  as  its  proper  masters,  and  as  the  persons 
with  a  view  to  whose  welfare  its  destination  ought 
to  be  determined.” 


72 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


It  may  be  argued  that  things  have  changed 
since  1878.  The  answer  to  that  is  that  principles 
are  immutable.  The  only  change  is  the  cruel 
reduction  of  the  Armenian  population.  I  ask, 
first  of  all:  “Is  it  fair  and  right  and  just  that  we 
should  suffer  massacre  and  persecution  for  gen¬ 
erations,  and  when  the  time  for  reparation  comes, 
should  be  penalized  because  so  many  of  us  have 
been  massacred?”  Secondly,  it  should  not  be 
forgotten  that  although  the  Armenian  element 
of  the  population  has  been  reduced,  the  Turks 
and  Kurds  have  also  suffered  very  considerable 
losses.  Thirdly,  the  Armenians  are  much  more 
advanced  intellectually  to-day  than  they  were 
forty  years  ago,  while  their  neighbours — Turks, 
Kurds,  and  others — are  stagnating  in  the  same 
primitive  state  as  they  were  forty — or,  for  that 
matter,  four  hundred — years  ago.  Another  cir¬ 
cumstance  which  adds  materially  to  the  chances 
of  success  of  an  autonomous  Armenia  is  the  ex¬ 
istence  of  a  number  of  flourishing  Armenian  com¬ 
munities  of  various  sizes  in  other  countries — in 
the  Russian  Caucasus  and  the  Russian  Empire, 
Persia,  the  United  States,  Egypt,  the  Balkans, 
France,  Great  Britain,  India,  Java,  etc. — which 
are  at  the  present  time  looking  forward  with  en¬ 
thusiasm  and  readiness  for  sacrifice,  to  “do  their 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR  73 

bit”  in  the  sacred  work  of  the  reconstruction  of 
their  stricken  and  beloved  Motherland. 

Coming  to  the  Spectator’s  contention  that 
“they  (the  Armenians)  could  not  stand  alone 
against  the  Kurds,”  I  can  assure  the  Spectator 
that  there  is  no  cause  whatever  for  apprehension 
on  that  score,  if  only  the  Russian  Government 
and  Army  authorities  will  agree  to  allow  the  Ar¬ 
menians  to  organize  under  their  guidance  and 
supervision,  immediately  after  the  war,  a  number 
of  flying  columns  from  among  discharged  Arme¬ 
nian  volunteers  and  soldiers  in  the  regular  army, 
for  the  specific  purpose  of  carrying  out  a  “drive” 
from  one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other  and  dis¬ 
arming  the  Kurds.  The  Armenian  volunteers, 
of  whom  I  speak  in  another  chapter,  have  had  a 
good  deal  of  fighting  to  do  with  the  Kurds  during 
the  war  and  have  proved  more  than  their  match, 
in  many  cases  against  superior  numbers. 

The  prevailing  erroneous  belief  that  the  Ar¬ 
menians  “could  not  stand  alone  among  the 
Kurds”  has  its  origin  in  the  fact  that  for  centuries 
(up  to  1908)  Armenians  have  been  an  easy  prey 
to  the  Kurds  by  reason  of  their  being  prohibited 
to  possess  or  carry  arms  on  pain  of  death,  while 
the  Kurds  were  supplied  with  arms  from  the 
government  arsenals,  and  encouraged  and  sup¬ 
ported  in  every  way  by  the  central  government 


74 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


to  harass  the  Armenians.  What  chance  would 
the  bravest  people  in  the  world  have  under  such 
circumstances?  Since  1908,  when  the  prohibition 
of  carrying  arms  by  Christians  was  relaxed,  it  is 
a  well-known  fact,  attested  by  European  travel¬ 
lers,  that  Kurds  never  attacked  Armenian  vil¬ 
lages  which  they  knew  to  be  armed.  Zeytoon  and 
Sassoon  have  demonstrated  beyond  question  that 
when  Armenians  have  met  Turks  on  anything 
like  equal  terms,  they  have  proved  their  match. 
These  isolated,  compact  communities  of  fearless 
mountaineers  were  never  entirely  subjugated  by 
the  Turks  until  the  outbreak  of  the  present  war, 
when  the  Zeytoonlis  were  overwhelmed  by  Turk¬ 
ish  treachery  and  the  Sassoonlis  died  fighting  to 
the  last  man  and  woman  ( see  Blue-book,  pp.  84 
and  87). 

In  1905  the  Tartars,  who  are  nearly  twice  as 
numerous  as  the  Armenians  in  the  Caucasus, 
made  a  sudden  attack  upon  the  latter  in  the 
Hamidian  style.  But  thanks  to  the  equity  of 
Russian  government,  Armenians  in  the  Caucasus 
were  as  free  to  carry  arms  as  Tartars,  so  the  Tar¬ 
tars  soon  regained  their  “humane  sentiments” 
and  offered  peace  to  stop  further  bloodshed.  I 
would  recommend  those  who  entertain  any  fears 
of  Armenians  being  able  to  defend  themselves 
against  Kurds  or  Tartars  to  read  Villari’s  Fire 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR  75 

and  Sword  in  the  Caucasus  and  Moore’s  The 
Orient  Express . 

At  all  events  Europe  will  not  be  taking  any 
risk  in  giving  the  Armenians  the  opportunity  of 
proving  that  they  can  “make  good”  in  spite  of 
the  Kurds,  and  also,  as  we  hope,  can  gradually 
civilize  the  Kurds  and  other  neighbouring  back¬ 
ward  races.1 

As  far  as  I  know  (in  fact  I  have  no  doubt 
about  it),  Armenians  are  prepared  to  take  the 
risk  of  “standing  alone  among  the  Kurds,  pro¬ 
vided  that  the  Entente  Powers  afford  them  the 
necessary  assistance  during  the  first  few  years 
of  reconstruction  and  initiation,  and  above  all, 
provided  that  they  enjoy  the  whole-hearted  and 
benevolent  good-will  of  Russia,  for  which,  it  is 
as  certain  as  anything  human  can  be,  their  great 
protector  and  neighbour  will  reap  a  rich  harvest 
in  the  future — as  rich  a  harvest  as  that  which 
Britain  is  reaping  to-day  for  her  act  of  justice 
and  statesmanship  in  South  Africa. 

1  Armenians  have  from  time  to  time  opened  schools  for 
Kurdish  children,  but  their  efforts  were  not  successful, 
mainly  owing  to  the  unfriendly  attitude  of  the  Turkish 
authorities. 


VI 


Armenia’s  services  in  the  war 

I  HAVE  spoken  earlier  in  these  pages  of  the 
services  of  the  Armenians  to  the  Allied  cause 
in  the  war.  What  are  these  services? 

The  Armenian  name  has  been  so  long  and  so 
often  associated  with  massacre  that  it  has  given 
rise  to  the  general  but  utterly  unfounded  belief 
by  those  who  have  not  gone  deeper  into  the  mat¬ 
ter,  that  Armenians  are  devoid  of  physical  cour¬ 
age  and  allow  themselves  to  be  butchered  like 
sheep.1  Where  this  belief  is  not  based  upon  ig- 

1  Pierre  Loti,  the  well-known  French  writer,  who  was  an 
ardent  Turkophile  before  the  war,  after  adding  his  quota 
to  the  current,  and,  one  is  constrained  to  say,  cheap,  com¬ 
ments  on  the  lack  of  courage  and  numberless  other  failings 
of  the  Armenians,  adds  the  following  P.S.  in  his  Turquie 
Agonisante  (pp.  94-95)  after  a  longer  sojourn  in  the 
country  and  closer  contact  with  realities.  (I  give  the 
translation  from  the  French.) — 

“Before  concluding  I  desire  to  make  honourable,  sincere 
and  spontaneous  amends  to  the  Armenians,  at  least  as 
regards  their  attitude  in  the  ranks  of  the  Ottoman  Army. 
This  is  certainly  not  due  to  the  protestations  which  they 
have  inserted  in  the  Constantinople  Press  by  the  power  of 
gold.”  [This  is  a  curious  admission  by  Pierre  Loti;  one 
of  the  stock  cries  of  the  Turkophiles  is  that  the  Turk  is 

76 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


77 


norance  of  the  facts  and  circumstances,  it  is,  I 
am  bound  to  say,  a  particularly  dastardly  piece 
of  calumny  upon  a  people  who  have  groaned  for 
centuries  under  a  brutal  tyrant’s  heel,  with  an 
indomitable  spirit  that  has  ever  been  and  is  even 
to-day  the  Turk’s  despair.  The  struggle  that 
has  gone  on  for  five  or  six  centuries  between  Ar¬ 
menian  and  Turk  symbolizes,  perhaps  better  than 
any  event  in  history,  the  invincibility  of  the  spirit 
of  Christianity  and  liberty  and  the  ideal  of  na¬ 
tionality  against  overwhelming  odds  of  ruthless 
tyranny,  the  savagery  of  the  Dark  Ages  and  the 
unscrupulous  and  mendacious  exploitation  of 

above  “bakshish.”]  “No,  I  have  many  friends  among 
Turkish  officers;  I  have  learned  from  them,  and  there  can 
be  no  doubt,  that  my  earlier  information  was  exaggerated, 
and  that,  notwithstanding  a  good  number  of  previous  de- 
I  sertions,  the  Armenians  placed  under  their  orders  con- 
:  ducted  themselves  with  courage.  Therefore,  I  am  happy 
:  to  be  able  to  withdraw  without  arriere  pensee  what  I  have 
said  on  this  subject,  and  I  apologize.” 

Of  all  British  games  and  sports  Armenians  in  different 
parts  of  the  British  Empire,  the  Dutch  Colonies  and 
Persia  have  manifested  a  natural  predilection  for  Rugby 
Football,  in  which  physical  courage  comes  into  play  more 
{  than  in  most  other  games.  In  recent  years  the  Armenian 
i  College  of  Calcutta  won  the  Calcutta  Schools’  Cup  three 
1  years  in  succession,  which  gave  it  the  right  to  retain  the 
trophy.  I  am  glad  to  see  in  the  March  issue  of  Ararat 
i  that  the  Boy  Scouts  of  the  same  college,  under  Scoutmaster 
Dr.  G.  D.  Hope,  have  won  the  King’s  Flag,  presented  by 
His  Majesty  to  the  troop  having  the  largest  number  of 
:  King’s  Scouts  in  India  and  Burmah. 


78 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


religious  passion.  That  struggle  has  been  as  un¬ 
equal  as  can  well  be  imagined,  but  we  have  not 
permitted  the  forces  of  darkness  to  triumph  over 
the  spirit  of  Light  and  Liberty,  though  the  price 
paid  has  come  very  near  that  of  our  annihilation.  ! 
Nevertheless,  we  have  been  able,  in  this  world¬ 
wide  struggle,  not  dissimilar  to  our  own  long 
struggle  in  the  moral  issues  involved,  to  render  i 
services  to  the  cause  of  the  Allies,  which  is  the 
cause  of  Right  and  Justice,  and  therefore  our 
cause  also,  quite  out  of  proportion,  in  their  effect, 
to  our  numbers  as  a  race  or  our  contribution  of 
fighting  men  as  compared  with  the  vast  armies 
engaged,  although  that  contribution  has  been  by 
no  means  negligible. 

On  the  eve  of  Turkey’s  entry  into  the  war  the 
Young  Turks  employed  every  conceivable  means 
— persuasion,  cajolery,  intimidation,  the  promise 
of  a  large  autonomous  Armenia,  etc. — to  induce 
the  Armenian  party  leaders  to  prevail  upon  the 
Russian  Armenians  to  join  themselves  in  a  mass 
rally  to  the  Turkish  flag  against  Russia.  They 
sent  a  number  of  emissaries  to  Russian  Armenia 
with  the  same  object.  The  Turk  must  have  a 
peculiar  understanding  of  human  nature,  and  not 
much  sense  of  humour,  to  have  the  ncuvete  to 
make  such  overtures  to  Armenians  after  having 
persecuted  and  harried  and  massacred  them  for 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


79 


centuries.  All  the  Armenian  leaders  promised 
was  a  correct  attitude  as  Ottoman  subjects.  They 
would  do  neither  more  nor  less  than  what  they 
were  bound  to  do  by  the  laws  of  the  country. 

I  They  could  not  interfere  with  the  freedom  of 
action  of  their  compatriots  in  the  Caucasus  who 
owed  allegiance  to  Russia.  They  kept  their 
promise  scrupulously  in  the  first  months  of  the 
war.  Armenian  conscripts  went  to  the  depots 
without  enthusiasm.  How  could  it  be  otherwise  ? 
What  claim  had  the  Turks  upon  the  sympathy 
and  support  of  their  Armenian  subjects?  Is 
sympathy  won  by  tyranny,  or  loyalty  bred  by 
massacre?  They  (the  Armenians)  were  placed  in 
a  most  difficult  position.  They  were  naturally 
reluctant  to  fight  against  the  Russians,  and  the 
position  was  aggravated  by  the  fact  that  the 
Russian  Caucasian  army  was  largely  composed 
of  Russian  Armenians.  But  in  spite  of  these 
sentimental  difficulties,  mobilization  was  com¬ 
pleted  without  any  serious  trouble. 

Soon,  however,  Armenians  began  to  desert  in 
large  numbers;  the  Young  Turks  had  joined  the 
war  against  their  wish  and  advice;  they  had  not 
their  heart  in  the  business,  and,  last,  but  not  least, 
they  were  harried,  ill-treated  and  insulted  by  their 
Turkish  officers  and  comrades  at  every  turn: 
there  were  exceptions,  of  course,  but  that  was 


80 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


: 


the  position  generally  in  the  closing  months  of 
1914.  Let  me  add  that  there  were  large  numbers 
of  Turkish  deserters  also,  and  that  the  Armenian 
leaders  did  all  they  could  to  send  the  deserters  of 
their  own  nationality  back  to  the  ranks,  doing  so 
forcibly  in  some  cases.  Then  came  the  defeat  of 
the  Turks  at  Sarikamysh  and  the  ejection  of 
Djevdet  Bey  and  his  force  from  Azerbaijan.  On 
his  return  to  Van,  Djevdet  Bey  told  his  friends: 
“It  is  the  Armenians  much  more  than  the  Rus¬ 
sians  who  are  fighting  us.” 

The  massacres  and  deportations  began  soon 
after  the  collapse  of  the  Turkish  invasion  of  the 
Caucasus  and  Northern  Persia,  and  it  is  only 
after  it  was  seen  clearly  that  the  Turks  were  de¬ 
termined  to  deport  or  destroy  them  all  that  the 
Armenians  in  many  places  took  up  arms  in  self- 
defence.  There  was  no  armed  resistance  before 
that,  and  the  Turkish  and  German  allegations 
of  an  Armenian  revolt  are  a  barefaced  invention 
to  justify  a  crime,  a  tithe  of  which  not  one  but  a 
hundred  revolts  cannot  justify  or  palliate.  This 
is  proved  beyond  all  question  by  Mr.  Toynbee’s 
concise  and  illuminating  historical  summary  at 
the  end  of  the  Blue-book  on  the  Treatment  of 
Armenians  by  the  Turks  during  the  war.  There 
was  no  revolt.  But  when  the  Armenians  were 
driven  to  self-defence  under  the  menace  of  exter- 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


81 


1 

mination,  they  fought  with  what  arms  they  could 
scrape  together,  with  the  courage  of  desperation* 
In  Shahin-Karahissar  they  held  out  for  three 
months  and  were  only  reduced  by  artillery 
brought  from  Erzerum.  In  Van  and  Jebel- 
Mousa  they  defended  themselves  against  heavy 
odds  until  relieved  by  the  Russians  and  the  Ar¬ 
menian  volunteers  in  the  first  case,  and  rescued 
by  French  and  British  cruisers  in  the  second.  The 
Turkish  force  sent  against  the  insurgents  of 
Jebel-Mousa  was  detached  from  the  army  in¬ 
tended  for  the  attack  on  the  Suez  Canal. 

Of  course  ill-armed,  poorly  equipped  bands 
without  artillery,  wanting  in  almost  all  neces¬ 
saries  of  modern  warfare,  brave  as  they  may  be, 
cannot  possibly  maintain  a  prolonged  resistance 
against  superior  forces  of  regulars  well  supplied 
with  artillery,  machine-guns  and  all  that  is  needed 
in  war.  Nevertheless,  some  of  these  bands  seem 
to  have  succeeded  in  holding  out  for  many 
months,  and  it  is  believed  in  the  Caucasus  that 
there  are  groups  of  armed  Armenians  still  hold¬ 
ing  out  in  some  parts  of  the  higher  mountains 
behind  the  Turkish  lines.1  It  will  be  remembered 

1 1  may  here  point  out  that — though  it  is  stated  in  the 
admirable  historical  summary  in  the  Blue-book  (p.  649) 
that  “the  number  of  those  who  have  emerged  from  hiding 
since  the  Russian  occupation  is  extraordinarily  small” — 
this  number  has  been  growing  very  considerably  of  late. 


82 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


that  some  weeks  ago — I  do  not  recall  the  date — 
a  Constantinople  telegram  reprinted  in  The 
Times  from  German  papers  stated  that  there 
were  30,000  armed  Armenian  rebels  in  the  vilayet 
of  Sivas.  This  is  an  obvious  exaggeration,  and 
it  may  simply  mean  that  a  considerable  number 
of  Armenians  were  still  defending  themselves 
against  the  menace  of  massacre.  When  the  Rus¬ 
sian  army  entered  Trebizond  a  band  of  some  400 
armed  Armenians  came  down  from  the  moun¬ 
tains  and  surrendered  themselves  to  the  Russians. 
Quite  recently  a  band  of  seventy  men  cut  through 
the  Turkish  lines  and  gained  the  Russian  lines 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Erzinjian. 

The  Turks  have  repeatedly  declared  that  the 
“Armenian  revolt”  threatened  to  place  their  army 
between  two  fires.  The  particle  of  truth  that 
there  is  in  this  assertion  is,  as  may  be  judged  by 
the  facts  so  far  known  as  cited  above,  that  the 
Armenian  resistance  to  massacre  and  deportation 
proved  to  be  more  serious  than  they  had  antici¬ 
pated,  and  that  they  had  to  detach  large  numbers 
of  troops  and  in  some  cases  artillery  and  machine- 
guns  to  keep  these  4  rebels”  in  check.  It  is  con¬ 
sequently  undeniable  that  Armenian  armed  resis- 

as  may  be  seen  from  Mr.  Backhouse’s  telegram  to  the 
chairman  of  the  Armenian  Refugees  (Lord  Mayor’s) 
Fund,  dated  Tiflis,  November  27,  1916,  published  in  the 
newspapers. 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR  83 

tance  to  deportation  and  massacre  has  been  a 
considerable  hindrance  to  the  full  development 
of  Turkish  military  power  during  the  war  and 
has,  in  that  way,  been  of  material,  though,  indi¬ 
rect  assistance  to  the  Allied  forces  operating 
against  the  Turks.  To  this  may  be  added  the 
demoralizing  effect  that  the  deplorable  state  of 
affairs  created  by  the  Turks  in  their  dominions 
must  have  exercised  on  the  morale  of  their  peo- 
ple. 

Such  in  general  outline  have  been  the  services 
of  the  Turkish  Armenians  to  the  Allied  cause. 
It  is  not  my  purpose  here  to  endeavour  to  ap¬ 
praise  the  possibly  ill-concealed,  but  not  by  any 
means  ostentatious  or  provocative,  sympathy  of 
the  Armenians  for  the  Allies,  upon  the  sinister 
designs  of  the  Young  Turks.  I  will  content 
myself  with  the  description  of  a  significant  car¬ 
toon  that  appeared  early  in  the  war  in  the  Turk¬ 
ish  comic  paper  Karagoz  in  Constantinople.  The 
cartoon  depicted  two  Turks  discussing  the  war. 
“Where  do  you  get  your  war  news  from?5’  asked 
Turk  number  one.  “I  do  not  need  war  news,” 
replied  Turk  number  two;  “I  can  follow  the 
course  of  the  war  by  the  expression  on  the  faces 
of  the  Armenians  I  meet.  When  they  are  happy 
I  know  the  Allies  are  winning,  when  depressed 
I  know  the  Germans  have  had  a  victory.” 


84 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


The  following  extract  from  a  dead  Turkish 
officer’s  notebook,  reproduced  in  the  Russkcda 
Viedomosti  (No.  205),  throws  some  light  on  the 
Turkish  estimate  of  the  value  of  Armenian  sup¬ 
port  in  the  war.  “If  our  Armenians  had  been 
with  us,”  wrote  this  Turkish  officer,  “we  would 
have  defeated  the  Russians  long  ago.”1 

The  services  of  the  Russian  Armenians  to  the 
Allied  cause,  but  principally,  of  course  to  the 
Russian  cause  during  the  war,  have  been  of  a 
more  direct  and  positive  character  and  of  far- 
reaching  importance.  They  may  be  divided  into 
two  distinct  parts,  namely,  military  and  political; 
and  in  order  the  better  to  explain  the  full  mean¬ 
ing  of  the  Armenian  “strong  support  of  the 
Russian  cause”  (in  the  words  of  The  Time#), 
I  will  deal  with  each  of  the  two  parts  separately. 

The  Armenian  population  of  Russian  Armenia 
and  the  Caucasus  numbers,  roughly,  1,750,000 
souls,  and  there  are  probably  another  100,000  to 
200,000  Armenians  scattered  over  the  other  parts 
of  the  empire.  They  are  liable  to  military  service 
as  Russian  subjects,  and  it  is  estimated  that  they 
have  given  to  the  Russian  army  some  160,000 
men.  Apart  from  this  not  negligible  number  of 

1  Compare  an  Armenian  officer’s  evidence,  Blue-book,  p. 
231,  “  .  .  .  they  laid  the  blame  for  this  defeat  upon  the 
Armenians,  though  he  could  not  tell  why.” 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


85 


men  called  to  the  colours  in  the  ordinary  course 
of  mobilization,  the  Armenians,  as  a  result  of  an 
understanding  with  the  authorities,  organized  and 
equipped  at  their  own  expense  a  separate  auxil¬ 
iary  volunteer  force  under  tried  and  experienced 
guerilla  leaders,  such  as  Andranik,  Keri  and  oth¬ 
ers,  to  co-operate  with  the  Caucasian  army.  This 
force  contained  a  number  of  Turkish  Armenians, 
mostly  refugees  from  previous  massacres.  Some 
twenty  thousand  men  responded  to  the  call  for 
volunteers,  though  I  believe  not  more  than  about 
ten  thousand  could  be  armed  and  sent  to  the 
front.  The  greatest  enthusiasm  prevailed.  Ar¬ 
menian  students  at  the  Universities  of  Moscow 
and  Petrograd  and  educational  institutions  in 
the  Caucasus  vied  with  each  other  in  their  eager¬ 
ness  to  take  part  in  the  fight  for  the  liberation  of 
their  kinsmen  from  bondage.  Several  young 
lady  students  offered  to  enlist,  but  I  believe  all 
but  two  or  three  were  dissuaded  from  taking  part 
in  actual  fighting.  Boys  of  fourteen  and  fifteen 
years  ran  away  from  home  and  tramped  long 
distances  to  join  the  volunteer  battalions.  It  is 
recorded  that  an  Armenian  widow  at  Kars,  on 
hearing  that  her  only  son  had  been  killed  in  bat¬ 
tle,  exclaimed,  “Curse  me  that  I  did  not  give 
birth  to  ten  more  sons  to  fight  and  die  for  the 
freedom  of  our  country.” 


86 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


The  volunteer  force  was  not  large,  but  it  was 
a  mobile  force  well  adapted  to  the  semi-guerilla 
kind  of  warfare  carried  on  in  Armenia,  and  the 
men  knew  the  country.  They  seem  to  have  done 
good  work  as  scouts  in  particular,  though  they 
took  part  in  many  severe  engagements  and  were 
mentioned  once  or  twice  in  Russian  communiques 
as  “our  Armenian  detachments.”  Generous  ap¬ 
preciation  of  the  services  and  gallantry  of  the 
volunteers  as  well  as  of  Armenians  in  the  army 
has  been  expressed  by  Russian  military  com¬ 
manders,  the  Press,  and  public  men.  High  mili¬ 
tary  honours  were  conferred  upon  the  volunteer 
leaders,  and  His  Imperial  Majesty  the  Czar  hon¬ 
oured  the  Armenian  nation  by  his  visit  to  the 
Armenian  Cathedral  in  Tiflis,  demonstrating  his 
satisfaction  with  the  part  played  by  Armenians 
in  the  war.1 

There  are,  of  course,  many  Armenian  high 
officers  in  the  Russian  Army,  including  several 
generals,  but  so  far  they  have  not  had  the  oppor¬ 
tunity  of  producing  in  this  war  outstanding  mil¬ 
itary  leaders  of  the  calibre  of  Loris  Melikoff  and 

1  In  an  article  on  “The  Armenian  Massacres”  in  the 
April  Contemporary  Review,  Mr.  Lewis  Einstein,  ex-mem¬ 
ber  of  the  staff  of  the  United  States  Embassy  in  Con¬ 
stantinople,  says:  “Talaat  attributed  the  disasters  that 
befell  the  Turks  at  Sarikamish,  in  Azerbaijan  and  at  Van, 
to  the  Armenian  volunteers.” 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


87 


Terkhougasoff.  General  Samsonoff,  “the  Rus¬ 
sian  Kitchener,”  was  killed  early  in  the  war  in 
East  Prussia  in  his  gallant  and  successful  attempt 
to  relieve  the  pressure  on  Paris. 

The  political  effect  of  the  strong  and  enthusi¬ 
astic  support  of  the  Russian  cause  by  Armenians 
has  been  to  keep  in  check  the  discontented  and 
fanatical  section  of  the  Tartars  and  other  Mos¬ 
lems  of  the  Caucasus,  who  would  have  been  dis¬ 
posed  to  make  common  cause  with  the  Turks 
whenever  a  favourable  opportunity  should  pre¬ 
sent  itself  to  do  so  without  much  risk  to  them¬ 
selves.  The  Tartars  and  other  Moslem  elements 
of  the  Caucasus  are  as  a  whole  genuinely  loyal 
to  Russia,  but  the  existence  of  a  minority  who 
would  welcome  the  success  of  the  Turkish  inva¬ 
sion  cannot  be  denied.  Some  of  the  A  jars  did, 
in  fact,  join  the  Turks  during  their  invasion  of 
Ardahan. 

All  things  considered,  therefore,  those  who 
have  any  knowledge  of  the  racial  and  political 
conditions  in  the  Caucasus  will  not,  I  think,  re¬ 
gard  it  as  in  any  sense  an  exaggeration  to  assert 
that  the  whole-hearted  support  of  the  Armenians 
— and  I  may  also  add,  though  in  a  lesser  degree, 
the  Georgians — has  contributed  very  materially 
to  the  success  of  Russian  arms  in  the  Caucasian 
theatre  of  the  war.  The  absence  of  that  support. 


88 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


or  even  mere  formal  or  lukewarm  support,  would 
not  only  most  probably  have  had  serious  conse¬ 
quences  for  the  Caucasus,  it  would  have  left  the 
whole  of  Persia  at  the  mercy  of  the  Turks;  and 
who  can  say  what  the  consequences  of  such  a 
catastrophe  would  have  been  on  Arabia,  Meso¬ 
potamia,  Afghanistan  and  even  the  northern 
frontiers  of  India  itself? 

.1 

Nearly  all  the  able-bodied  Armenians  in 
France,  between  1000  and  1500  strong,  joined 
the  French  Foreign  Legion  quite  early  in  the 
war.  Some  Armenians  came  from  the  United 
States  to  fight  for  France.  Only  some  250  have 
survived,  I  understand,  most  of  whom  are  proud 
possessors  of  the  Military  Cross. 

Propaganda  in  neutral  countries  has  played 
an  important  part  during  the  war.  The  just 
cause  of  the  Allies  has  had  no  stauncher  support¬ 
ers  or  better  propagandists  than  the  hundred  and 
twenty-five  thousand  or  more  Armenians  in  the 
United  States,  while  the  Great  Tragedy  of  Ar¬ 
menia  has  incidentally  added  to  the  armoury  of 
the  Allies  a  melancholy  but  formidable  moral 
weapon. 


VII 


ARMENIA  THE  BATTLE-GROUND  OF  ASIA  MINOR  AND  VIC¬ 
TIM  OF  CONTENDING  EMPIRES 

NO  country  and  people  have  suffered  so 
severely  from  the  clash  of  rival  empires, 
both  in  war  and  diplomacy,  as  have  Armenia  and 
the  Armenians,  so  far  as  is  known  to  the  recorded 
history  of  the  world.  Her  geographical  position 
has  made  Armenia  the  cockpit  of  ambitious  em¬ 
pires  and  conquerors,  and  the  highway  of  their 
armies  in  Western  Asia,  much  as  Belgium  and 
Poland  have  been  the  battle-grounds  of  Europe. 
But  whereas  in  these  European  battle-grounds 
the  invading  armies  have  generally  moved  east 
and  west  only,  Armenia  has  endured  the  horrors 
of  invasion,  time  after  time,  from  north,  south, 
east  and  west.  Then,  again,  Armenia  being  a 
much  older  country,  the  record  of  her  suffering 
from  the  invading  armies  of  her  stronger  neigh¬ 
bours,  “hacking  their  way”  through  her  territory, 
extends  over  a  proportionately  longer  period 
than  that  of  Belgium  and  Poland.  Armenia  has 
been  invaded  and  ravaged  in  turn  by  Babylo- 

89 


90 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


nians,  Assyrians,  Egyptians,  Hittites,  Parthians, 
Macedonians,  Persians,  Greeks,  Romans,  Arabs, 
Tartars  and  Turks.  Only  during  the  first  cen¬ 
tury  b.c.  did  she  succeed  in  subduing  all  her 
neighbours,  and  establishing  a  short-lived  empire 
of  her  own,  extending  from  the  Mediterranean 
to  the  Caspian. 

The  analogy  between  Armenia  and  her  Euro¬ 
pean  co-sufferers  from  the  ills  of  aggressive  Im¬ 
perialism  ceases  altogether,  however,  when  we 
come  to  the  period  of  Turkish  domination.  The 
blood-stained  history  of  that  regime  is  well 
enough  known.  Periodic  explosions  have  re¬ 
minded  Europe  of  the  existence  of  the  inferno 
of  unbridled  lust,  corruption  and  predatory  bar¬ 
barism  which  this  unhappy  people  have  been 
fated  to  endure  for  centuries.  What  has  not  been 
brought  into  sufficient  relief  is  the  fact  that  this 
“bloody  tyranny”  could  have  long  since  been 
brought  to  an  end,  or,  at  all  events,  effectively 
curbed,  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  jealousies  and 
rivalries  of  the  great  modern  Christian  empires. 
The  history  of  the  acts  of  European  diplomacy 
in  regard  to  Armenia  and  the  Near  East  during 
the  last  sixty  or  seventy  years  is  not  one  of  which 
the  diplomats  and  statesmen  concerned  can  be 
particularly  proud.  Who  can  claim  for  them 
to-day  to  have  served,  in  the  sum  total  of  their 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


91 


results,  either  the  interests  of  the  Christian  sub¬ 
jects  of  the  Porte,  the  progress  of  civilization,  the 
material  interests  of  the  Great  Powers  them¬ 
selves,  or  the  supreme  interests  of  peace? 

Mr.  Balfour  says  in  his  famous  Dispatch  to 
the  British  Ambassador  to  the  United  States 
that  “Turkey  has  ceased  to  be  a  bulwark  of 
peace,”  thereby  implying,  obviously,  that  Turkey 
had  played  that  part  before.  Mr.  Balfour  is  a 
great  authority  on  political  history,  and  when 
he  avers  that  Turkey  has  been  a  “bulwark  of 
peace”  she  must  have  filled  such  a  role  at  some 
period  of  her  history.  But  to  his  Christian  sub¬ 
jects,  at  any  rate,  the  Turk  has  never  brought 
peace.  He  has  brought  them  fire  and  sword  and 
a  riot  of  unbridled  lust,  rapacity,  corruption  and 
cruelty  unparalleled  even  in  the  Dark  Ages.  The 
only  peace  he  has  brought  them  has  been  the 
peace  of  death  and  devastation.  He  has  not  even 
left  trees  to  break  the  awful  silence  of  desolation 
which  he  has  spread  over  this  fair  and  fertile  land 
once  throbbing  with  human  life  and  activity. 
That  is  the  price  paid  for  whatever  part  Turkey 
may  have  played  in  the  past  as  a  bulwark  of 
international  peace.  Professor  Valran  of  the 
University  of  Aix-en-Provence  estimates  the  Ar¬ 
menian  population  of  Turkey  in  the  beginning 


9£  ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 

of  the  nineteenth  century  at  5,000, 000.1  The! 
population  of  the  not  too  healthy  island  of  Java; 
was  the  same  at  the  same  period.  Under  the  ex-1 
cellent  rule  of  the  Dutch,  the  population  of  that 
island  has  grown  up  to  over  35,000,000  during; 
the  century.  What  has  become  of  the  Arme¬ 
nians,  one  of  the  most  virile  and  prolific  races  of 
the  world  living  in  a  healthy  country?  Let  the 
friends  and  protectors  of  the  Turk  and  his  sys-1 
tern  of  government  give  the  answer.  In  particu¬ 
lar  let  those  answer  who,  with  the  Turks’  black! 
and  bloodstained  record  of  centuries  before  them, 
have,  nevertheless,  the  effrontery  to  maintain,  at ! 
this  hour  of  day,  that  the  Turk  has  not  been  given 
a  fair  chance.  The  blood  of  the  myriads  of  inno¬ 
cents  who  have  fallen  victims  to  the  Turks’  in-! 
curable  barbarism  throughout  these  centuries, 
cries  aloud  against  such  a  brazen  and  deliberate 
travesty  of  the  truth. 

One  of  the  principal  enactments  of  the  Treaty 
of  Paris  was  to  admit  Turkey  into  the  comity  of 
the  Great  Powers  of  Europe.  To-day,  after  a 
probation  of  sixty  years,  at  a  fearful  cost  to  her 
Christian  subjects,  it  is  at  last  admitted  that 
Turkey  has  proved  herself  “decidedly  foreign  to 
Western  civilization.”  Could  there  be  a  more  i 
crushing  condemnation  of  the  judgment  of  the 

1  Le  Semaphore  de  Marseille ,  November  20,  1915. 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


93 


statesmen  responsible  for  that  treaty  in  regard 
to  the  Turk  ?  The  more  one  studies  the  record  of 
the  Turk,  the  more  one  marvels  at  the  unbounded 
confidence  placed  in  his  promises  of  reform  by 
some  of  the  greatest  statesmen  of  modern  times. 
In  vain  have  I  ransacked  the  history  books  in 
search  of  an  instance  where  the  Turk  carried  out, 
or  honestly  attempted  to  carry  out,  a  single  one 
of  his  numerous  promises  of  reform.  Every  one 
of  them  was  a  snare  and  a  pretence  designed 
merely  to  oil  the  wheels  of  a  cunning  diplo¬ 
macy  or  tide  over  a  momentary  embarrassment. 
Whether  it  was  the  Sultan  or  Grand  Vizier  or 
Ambassador,  whenever  the  Turk  made  a  promise 
to  improve  the  lot  of  his  Christian  subjects,  he 
had  made  up  his  mind  beforehand  that  that  prom¬ 
ise  would  never  be  performed.1 

1 1  am  indebted  to  my  friend  Mr.  H.  N.  Mosditehian 
for  the  following  account  of  an  incident  which  throws 
some  light  on  the  ways  of  the  Turk — 

“The  massacres  of  Sassoon  in  1893-1894,  first  described 
at  the  time  by  Dr.  Dillon  in  The  Daily  Telegraph,  and 
the  first  of  the  series  that  drenched  Armenia  with  the  blood 
of  over  200,000  of  her  sons  and  daughters,  raised  such  a 
cry  of  horror  and  indignation  throughout  the  civilised 
world  that  Great  Britain,  France  and  Russia,  through  their 
Embassies  at  Constantinople,  prepared  a  Scheme  of  Re¬ 
forms,  known  as  the  Scheme  of  the  11th  of  May  1895, 
and  after  much  difficulty  and  long  negotiations  obtained 
thereto  the  approval  of  Abd-ul-Hamid,  ‘the  Red  Sultan.’ 

“I  was  with  the  Patriarch  when  the  Hon.  M.  H.  Her¬ 
bert,  Secretary  to  the  British  Embassy,  brought  to  the 


94* 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


Since  the  beginning  of  last  century  Russia  has 
been,  by  reason  of  her  geographical  contiguity, 

Patriarchate  the  good  tidings  of  the  Sultan’s  acceptance 
of  the  Scheme.  Upon  his  special  advice,  the  Patriarch 
sent  there  and  then  telegraphic  instructions  to  all  the 
Armenian  Bishoprics  in  the  provinces  to  chant  Te  Deums 
in  the  churches  and  to  offer  up  prayers  for  the  benign  and 
magnanimous  Padishah ! 

“I  was  again  with  the  Patriarch  a  day  or  two  after 
when  telegrams  began  to  pour  in  from  the  provinces  an¬ 
nouncing  a  fresh  outbreak  of  massacres  throughout  the 
country.  I  hastened  to  the  Embassies  of  the  Six  Great 
Powers  to  give  them  the  appalling  news  and  to  ask  for  j 
their  immediate  assistance.  As  is  well  known,  they  did  or 
could  do  nothing,  and  the  massacres  went  on,  unchecked 
and  unbridled,  assuming  every  day  larger  dimensions  and 
a  better  organised  thoroughness.  .  .  .” 

I  called  on  Judge  Terrell,  the  American  Ambassador, 
also.  “I  am  not  at  all  surprised,”  said  he,  “at  these  fresh 
massacres.  I  knew  they  would  be  coming,  so  much  so  that 
the  moment  I  heard  that  the  Sultan  was  about  to  affix  his 
signature  to  the  Scheme  of  Reforms,  I  hastened  to  the 
Grand  Vezir  and  insisted  upon  his  sending  telegraphic 
orders  to  all  the  Valis  to  take  good  care  that  no  American 
subject  was  hurt.  The  Grand  Vezir  protested  of  course 
that  there  was  no  necessity  for  such  orders  inasmuch  as 
peace  and  security  reigned  supreme  in  all  the  Vilayets,  but 
I  told  him  that  I  knew  what  was  going  to  happen  shortly 
as  well  as  he  did,  and  refused  to  leave  until  he  had  de¬ 
spatched  the  telegrams  in  my  presence.”  Judge  Terrell 
then  told  me  that  it  had  long  been  known  to  him  that  the 
Valis  of  all  the  Vilayets  had  received  standing  orders  from 
the  Sultan  to  massacre  the  Armenians  ( a )  whenever  they 
should  discover  any  revolutionary  movement  among  them, 

( b )  whenever  they  should  hear  of  a  British,  French  or 
Russian  invasion  of  Turkish  territory,  and  (c)  whenever 
they  should  hear  that  the  Sultan  had  agreed  to  and  signed 
a  Scheme  of  Reforms. 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


95 


practically  the  only  Power  which  the  Turk  has 
really  feared.  In  contrast  with  the  near  Eastern 
policies  of  the  Western  Powers,  Russian  policy 
has  been  almost  invariably  hostile  to  the  Turk 
since  the  days  of  Peter  the  Great.  Of  course, 
this  was  not  always  pure  altruism  on  the  part  of 
the  rulers  of  Russia.  But,  whatever  the  motive, 
Russian  policy  certainly  coincided  absolutely 
with  the  interests  of  humanity  and  civilization. 
And  while  in  the  West  the  policy  of  “buttressing 
the  Turk'’  (in  the  words  of  the  Bishop  of  Ox¬ 
ford)  often  met  with  strong  opposition  among 
the  democracies  of  England  and  France,  Russian 
policy  in  regard  to  the  Turk  has  always  enjoyed 
the  unanimous  support  of  the  Russian  people, 
who  being  the  Turk’s  neighbour  and  having  had 
several  wars  with  him,  knew  his  true  nature  from 
prolonged  personal  contact.  The  one  departure 
from  Russia’s  traditional  policy  was  Count  Lo- 
banoff’s  regrettable — and  I  may  say  inexplicable 
— refusal  to  take  joint  action  with  Britain  and 
France  to  put  a  term  upon  the  butcheries  of  1895- 
96,  and  adopt  such  effective  measures  as  would 
perhaps  have  put  it  beyond  the  power  of  the 
Turk  to  indulge  again  in  his  diabolical  orgies  of 
cold-blooded  barbarism. 

His  fear  of  Russia,  which  acted  as  a  wholesome 
restraint  upon  the  predatory  tendencies  of  the 


/ 


96 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


Turk,  was  weakened  by  the  Treaty  of  Paris  tak¬ 
ing  away  from  Russia  her  effective  protectorate 
over  the  Christian  subjects  of  the  Porte,  and  was 
removed  altogether  by  the  Treaty  of  Berlin  and 
the  Cyprus  Convention.  The  Turk  was  quick 
to  understand  that  the  Western  Powers  would 
not  permit  Russia  to  intervene  on  behalf  of  his 
persecuted  Christian  subjects.  He  saw  that  con¬ 
ditions  were  favourable  for  putting  into  execu¬ 
tion  his  “policy”  of  getting  rid  of  his  Christian 
subjects,  and  he  forthwith  set  to  work  to  carry 
out  his  foul  project. 

Events  have  proved  the  Treaty  of  Berlin  to 
have  been  the  masterpiece  of  Bismarck’s  policy 
of  “divide  et  impera.”  It  created,  as  it  was  de¬ 
signed  to  create,  a  deep  and  bitter  feeling  of  mis¬ 
trust  and  antagonism  between  Great  Britain  and 
Russia,  which  gave  Germany  her  chance  of  gain¬ 
ing  a  strong  foothold  in  the  Ottoman  Empire. 

The  appearance  of  Germany  upon  the  scene 
created  new  dangers,  which  have  proved  all  but 
fatal  to  the  Armenian  people. 

The  Emperor  William  II,  on  his  return  from 
his  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  Land,  paid  a  visit  to, 
and  fraternized  with,  the  murderer  of  250,000 
Armenians  who  had  died  for  the  sake  of  the  very 
Christ  from  the  scene  of  whose  life  the  Christian 
emperor  had  just  returned.  This,  by  the  way, 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


97 


was  in  characteristic  contrast  with  King  Ed¬ 
ward’s  refusal  of  the  Sultan’s  offer  of  his  por¬ 
trait  about  the  same  time.  This  act  of  the  great 
and  humane  English  king  has  touched  the  hearts 
of  Armenians,  who  cherish  a  deep  and  reverent 
affection  for  his  memory. 

The  result  of  the  Emperor  William’s  visit  to 
Abdul  Hamid  was  the  Baghdad  Bail  way  and 
many  other  concessions,  and  no  doubt  a  great 
scheme  of  a  future  Germano-Turkish  Empire  in 
the  East. 

I  believe  it  was  Dr.  Paul  Bohrbach,  the  well- 
known  German  writer  on  Near  Eastern  affairs, 
who  suggested  some  years  ago  that  the  deporta¬ 
tion  of  the  Armenians  from  their  homes  and  their 
settlement  in  agricultural  colonies  along  the 
Baghdad  Bailway  would  be  the  best  way  to  make 
that  line  pay  quick  and  handsome  dividends. 

Some  time  ago  I  read  in  The  Near  East  the 
account  of  a  conversation  between  an  American 
missionary  and  a  German  officer  travelling  to¬ 
gether  in  Anatolia.  The  German  officer  con¬ 
fessed  that  what  he  had  seen  was  horrible,  more 
horrible  than  anything  he  had  ever  seen  before; 
“but,”  he  added,  “what  could  we  do?  The  Ar¬ 
menians  were  in  the  way  of  our  military  aims” 
Supposing  that  resistance  to  massacre  by  Arme¬ 
nian  men  was  interpreted  by  the  German  agents 


98 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


in  Turkey  as  being  “in  the  way  of  their  military 
aims,”  what  possible  excuse  could  there  be  for 
the  abominable  treatment,  the  torture,  the 
slaughter,  and  the  driving  to  misery  and  death  of 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  women  and  children? 
Were  they  also  in  the  way  of  their  military  aims? 

While  the  Turks  were  butchering  Christians 
in  their  hundreds  of  thousands,  the  German  Em¬ 
peror  was  presenting  a  sword  of  honour  to  the 
Sultan  of  Turkey  and  showering  honours  upon 
Enver  Pasha  at  his  headquarters.  While  thou¬ 
sands  of  Christian  children  and  women  were  be¬ 
ing  mercilessly  slaughtered  and  driven  to  death 
by  Germany’s  ally,  and  their  bodies  thrown  to  the 
wolves  and  vultures  in  the  Mesopotamian  deserts, 
the  German  Government  was  making  provision 
for  the  housing  and  tuition  of  thousands  of  Turk¬ 
ish  youths  in  the  technical  schools  of  Germany  to 
fill  the  places  of  the  “eliminated”  Armenians. 
What  have  Christian  Germans  to  say  to  all  this? 
Do  the  Johanniter  Knights,  of  whom  the  Kaiser 
is  himself  Grand  Master,  approve  of  these  pro¬ 
ceedings?  Do  they  think  that  He  who  said  “in¬ 
asmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one  of  these  little 
ones,  ye  have  done  it  unto  Me”  knows  of  any  dis¬ 
tinction  of  race?  How  can  German  Christians, 
from  their  rulers  downwards,  face  God  and  the 
Son  of  God  in  the  intimacy  of  their  prayers  after 


99 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 

sanctioning  these  black  deeds  which  are  the  very 
negation  of  God  and  the  teaching  of  Christ?  Do 
the  rulers  of  Germany  and  Turkey  and  the  pro¬ 
tagonists  of  the  Reventlow  doctrine  believe  that 
empires,  railways,  or  any  other  schemes  of  expan¬ 
sion,  built  upon  foundations  of  the  blood  and  tears 
of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  human  beings,  will 
endure  and  prosper  and  bring  forth  harvests  of 
plenty  and  peace  and  happiness  to  their  promo¬ 
ters,  their  children,  and  their  children’s  children? 
They  are  mistaken.  My  word  may  count  for 
naught  to  the  rulers  and  leaders  of  mighty  states ; 
but  it  is  true.  We  are  an  ancient  people.  “We 
have  seen  empires  come  and  empires  go.”  We 
have  been  ground  for  centuries  in  the  mill  of  the 
ruthless  clash  of  contending  empires ;  but  in  spite 
of  our  long  and  bitter  sufF  erings  our  belief  to-day 
is  as  strong  as  ever  in  the  existence  of  another 
mill,  the  mill  of  Divine  Justice,  which  grinds  in 
its  own  good  time,  and  may  grind  slow,  but  “it 
grinds  exceeding  small.”  Who  will  doubt  or 
deny  that  violence  to  women  and  children  and  un¬ 
offending,  defenceless  men,  “every  hair  of  whose 
head  is  numbered,”  will  not  be  forgiven  by  their 
just  and  Almighty  Creator;  that  the  sacrifice  of 
them  for  ulterior  selfish  objects  will  not  be  over¬ 
looked  ?  Political  and  military  acts  of  the  mighti¬ 
est  empires,  entailing  injustice,  violence  and  suf- 


100 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


fering  to  weaker  peoples  will  bring  Nemesis  in 
their  train  in  due  course.  The  idol  with  feet  of 
clay,  sunk  in  the  blood  of  innocents,  cannot  en¬ 
dure.  Sooner  or  later  it  must  fall. 


VIII 


THE  BLUE-BOOK - THE  EPIC  OF  ARMENIANS  MARTYRDOM, 

THE  REVELATION  OF  HER  SPIRIT  AND  CHARACTER - - 

“truth”  ON  THE  ARMENIANS  l  A  DIGRESSION 

TO  realize,  even  approximately,  the  unimagi¬ 
nable  barbarities  that  have  been  committed 
by  the  Turks  during  the  Great  Armenian  Trag¬ 
edy  of  1915,  it  is  necessary  to  read  the  Blue-book 
itself.  But  the  Blue-book  is  a  bulky  volume,  and 
the  average  man  or  woman  has  so  many  calls  on 
his  or  her  attention  in  these  stirring  and  momen¬ 
tous  times,  that  I  fear  it  will  not  be  read  as  widely 
as  it  deserves  to  be  read  in  the  interests  of  human¬ 
ity,  Christianity,  and  civilization.  I  have,  there¬ 
fore,  thought  it  desirable  to  quote  a  number  of 
extracts  which  will  give  the  reader  some  idea  of 
the  nature  and  magnitude  of  the  horrors  chron¬ 
icled  in  that  fearful  epic  of  a  nation’s  martyrdom, 
in  the  hope  that  they  may  thereby  reach  a  wider 
circle  of  the  public. 

Apart  from  giving  the  reader  a  general  idea 
of  the  atrocities  themselves,  I  have  selected  and 
grouped  the  extracts  with  the  object  of  calling 
attention  to  the  incidental  or  subsidiary  morals 

101 


102 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


and  lessons  they  convey,  which  have  received  lit¬ 
tle  or  no  notice  in  the  Press  reviews.  The  Blue- 
book  reveals  the  spirit,  the  character  and  the 
ideals  which  lay  hidden  under  the  unattractive 
outside  appearance  of  the  Armenians,  upon  which 
has  been  based  their  mostly  superficial  judgment 
of  them  by  European  travellers.  Often  under 
the  influence  of  a  sense  of  indebtedness  for  an 
escort  of  Zaptiehs  “graciously  placed  at  their 
disposal  by  a  kindly  vali”  (in  whose  harem  were 
probably  languishing  a  dozen  or  more  enslaved 
women),  they  have  seldom  paused  to  understand 
the  tragedy  of  the  dour,  subdued,  anxious  mien 
of  the  Armenian  peasant  seen  trudging  wearily 
along  in  the  highways  and  byways  of  Asia  Minor. 
They  little  realized  that  the  Armenian  lived  under 
the  strain  of  constant  terrorism;  that  he  never 
knew  when  the  honour  of  his  wife  or  sister  might 
be  violently  assaulted ;  when  he  might  be  stabbed 
in  the  back ;  when  his  cattle  might  be  driven  away 
or  his  crops  burned  or  stolen.  He  was  afraid 
even  of  a  too  attractive  personal  appearance,  lest 
he  should  excite  the  cupidity  and  jealousy  of  his 
Turkish  neighbour.  If  he  fell  upon  his  perse-t 
cutor  and  slew  him  in  defence  of  the  honour  of 
his  womenfolk,  it  meant  the  wiping  out  not  only 
of  his  family  but  of  his  whole  village.  His  own 
government  was  his  deadly  enemy,  bent  upon  his 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


103 


destruction.  This  has  been  the  tragedy  of  the 
Armenian’s  life  for  generations.  It  has  been  lit¬ 
tle  known  in  the  W est  because  Armenia  is  a  long 
way  off,  and  few  European  travellers  have 
stopped  to  look  below  the  surface.  He  has  lived 
with  the  yatagan  hanging  over  his  head,  like  the 
sword  of  Damocles,  from  birth  to  death.  Virile, 
industrious,  patient,  long-suffering,  but  never 
despondent,  he  has  clung  to  his  faith,  his  soil,  his 
ancient  culture,  his  nationality  and  ideals  of  civil¬ 
ization  with  a  tenacity  that  centuries  of  “bloody 
tyranny”  have  tended  only  to  steel  more  and 
more.  That  he  has  succeeded  in  preserving  the 
ideals  which  have  cost  his  nation  such  heartbreak¬ 
ing  sacrifices  is  abundantly  proved  by  the  Blue- 
book.  Here  is  one  evidence:  “Mr.  Yarrow,  see¬ 
ing  all  this,  said,  T  am  amazed  at  the  self-control 
ht  ;>f  the  Armenians,  for  though  the  Turks  did  not 
jd  spare  a  single  wounded  Armenian,  the  Arme¬ 
nians  are  helping  us  to  save  the  Turks’  ”  (p.  70) . 

But  of  all  the  tales  of  calm,  dignified  heroism 
in  face  of  death  recorded  in  the  Blue-book,  W. 
Effendi’s  letter  (p.  133,  and  504  of  the  Blue- 
book)  written  on  the  eve  of  his,  his  young  wife’s 
and  infant  child’s  deportation  to  what  he  knew  to 
lybe  certain  death,  will  ever  stand  out  as  an  im¬ 
pressive  example  of  the  noblest  heroism,  the 
highest  conception  of  the  teaching  of  Christ  and 


104 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


a  complete  triumph  of  the  spirit,  unsurpassec 
in  the  annals  of  Christian  martyrdom.  “Ma\ 
God  forgive  this  nation  all  their  sin  which  thej 
do  without  knowing,”  wrote  this  true  followei 
of  Christ,  while  he  was  making  ready  for  his  ant 
his  loved  ones’  journey  to  sorrow  and  death.  I 
recalls  the  story  of  St.  Stephen’s  martyrdom 
.  W.  EfFendi’s  letter  and  Nurse  Cavell’s  immorta 
words,  “patriotism  is  not  enough,”  strike  me  ai 
the  two  most  remarkable  utterances  deliverer 
spontaneously  by  heroic  spirits  in  proof  of  th( 
bankruptcy  of  the  “frightfulness”  to  which  the} 
were  on  the  point  of  falling  victims. 

There  was  a  short  notice  in  Truth  of  January 
31,  1917,  in  connection  with  Armenia  Day  whicl 
contained  the  following  remark:  “Some  peopl< 
despise  these  'eleventh  Allies’  as  a  mercenary 
race,  but  others,  like  Mr.  Noel  Buxton,  depicl 
them  in  a  much  more  attractive  light.” 

With  the  reader’s  indulgence  I  will  digress 
for  a  moment  to  deal  briefly  with  this  totally  uni 
justified  stigma  cast  wantonly  upon  the  charac¬ 
ter  of  a  sorely  tried  nation. 

In  the  unoffensive  sense  of  the  word  the  whok 
human  family  may  be  called  “mercenary.”  I 
have  not  met  or  heard  of  a  race  of  men  in  any  of 
the  explored  parts  of  the  earth,  whatever  their 
colour,  creed,  or  degree  of  civilization,  who  had 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR  105 

any  conscientious  objection  to  the  acquiring  of 
as  much  money  as  they  could  acquire  by  legit¬ 
imate  and  honourable  means.  I  do  not  suppose 
Truth  itself  is  dispensing  its  very  helpful  “Rub¬ 
ber  tips”  week  by  week  solely  for  the  good  of 
humanity.  But  if  it  is  asserted  that  the  Ar¬ 
menian  race  puts  the  love  of  gold  before  every¬ 
thing  else  in  life,  such  an  assertion  at  this  junc¬ 
ture  is  a  particularly  ill-timed,  offensive  and  un¬ 
worthy  aspersion.  A  mercenary  race,  forsooth! 
If  the  Armenian  race  had  valued  gold  above  its 
loyalty  to  its  faith  and  nationality;  if  it  had  at¬ 
tached  greater  value  to  material  prosperity  than 
to  spiritual  ideals  and  principles,  it  would  have 
accepted  Islam  centuries  ago — Heaven  knows 
the  temptation  was  great — and  won  a  predom¬ 
inant  position  for  itself  in  Asia  Minor.  It  would 
be  counted  to-day  not  by  two  or  three,  but  by 
twenty  or  thirty  millions.  But  under  the  longest 
and  bloodiest  pressure  endured  by  any  people  in 
history,  culminating  almost  in  its  extermination, 
it  refused  to  sell  its  soul. 

Thousands  of  Armenians  could  have  saved 
their  lives  by  feigning  to  accept  Islam,  but,  with 
few  exceptions,  they  refused  to  commit  even  that 
measure  of  spiritual  dishonesty,  which  would  per¬ 
haps  not  have  been  considered  unpardonable  un¬ 
der  the  circumstances.  There  is  scarcely  any  in- 


106 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


stance  of  an  Armenian  woman  trafficking  her 
honour  for  money;  which  is,  perhaps,  the  most 
eloquent  refutation  of  the  calumny. 

What  good  object  has  Truth  served  by  giving 
currency  in  its  columns  to  this  libel  against  an 
oppressed  people,  almost  wiped  out  because  of  its 
Christian  faith  and  its  sympathy  for  and  support 
of  the  Allied  cause?  Even  if  there  were  the  re¬ 
motest  justification  for  it  one  would  have  thought 
that  Truth  would  have  shrunk,  at  this  dark  and 
bitter  hour,  from  adding  insult  to  the  agony  of  a 
people  plunged  into  sorrow  and  mourning  for 
the  loss  of  half  its  number.  But  the  assertion 
that  the  Armenians  are  a  mercenary  race  is  not 
true.  It  is  part  of  the  propaganda  carried  on  by 
a  very  few  people  who  are  either  blinded  by  un¬ 
reasoning  prejudice,  or  have  some  special  purpose 
to  serve,  or  believe  that  they  are  discharging  some 
kind  of  duty  by  whitewashing  the  Turk  and 
blackening  the  Armenian.  I  believe  that  these 
admirers  of  the  votaries  of  “bloody  tyranny”  on 
the  Bosphorus  are  very  few  indeed  in  this  coun¬ 
try.  Whoever  they  are  and  whatever  their  mo¬ 
tives,  conscious  of  my  obligations  to  the  generous 
hospitality  of  this  country — for  which  I  cannot 
be  too  grateful — but  taking  my  stand  on  the 
broader  ground  of  Humanity,  I  wish  to  say  to 
them,  “Though  you  are  in  Great  Britain,  you  are 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


107 


not  of  it ;  though  this  great,  humane  and  Christian 
country  may  be  your  physical  home  by  accident 
of  birth,  you  will  find  your  congenial  ‘spiritual 
home’  in  the  offices  of  Count  Reventlow  and  the 
Tanine.  Charity,  after  all,  is  a  matter  between 
a  man  and  his  conscience  and  his  God.  If  you 
cannot  give  your  money  to  a  starving  woman  or 
child  without  massacring  them  morally,  while 
the  Turk  is  taking  their  life,  pray  spare  your 
money  and  let  the  Armenian  die;  it  will  please 
the  Turk  and  his  allies.  Perhaps  it  would  be 
more  in  harmony  with  your  sentiments  and  polit¬ 
ical  faith  to  lend  your  money  to  your  friend  the 
Turk.  When  the  war  is  over  he  may  need  a  fresh 
supply  of  arms,  for  even  the  tender  limbs  of  the 
countless  women  and  children  on  whom  he  has 
practised  his  ‘chivalry’  may  well  have  blunted  and 
worn  his  old  stock.” 

There  are  mercenary  Armenian  individuals  as 
there  are  mercenary  persons  in  every  nation.  It 
may  be  that,  debarred  from  government  posts  ex¬ 
cept  when  he  was  indispensable,  the  town  Arme¬ 
nian  in  Turkey,  like  the  Greek  and  Syrian,  has 
been  compelled  to  direct  his  energies  into  com¬ 
mercial  channels  in  a  larger  proportion  than 
free  and  independent  nations.  Naturally,  also, 
through  generations  of  ruthless  persecution,  the 
Armenian  nation  has  thrown  up  a  flotsam  and 


108 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


jetsam  of  indigents  wandering  far  and  wide  in 
search  of  security  and  the  means  of  earning  a 
living.  But  to  brand  the  whole  Armenian  race 
as  “mercenary”  is  malevolent  nonsense,  or  cre¬ 
dulity  due  to  a  total  ignorance  of  the  facts.  Sev¬ 
enty  or  eighty  per  cent,  of  the  Armenians  in 
Turkish  as  well  as  Russian  Armenia  are  peasants, 
farmers  and  artisans.  That  is  approximately 
true  also  of  the  Persian  Armenians.  Even  in  the 
United  States  the  majority  of  the  immigrants 
have  taken  to  fruit-growing  in  California.  Ar¬ 
menians  who  have  the  means  to  give  their  sons  a 
good  education  almost  invariably  make  them  fol¬ 
low  a  profession  in  preference  to  commerce,  as 
witness  the  number  of  Armenian  university  pro¬ 
fessors,  doctors,  lawyers  and  some  artists  and 
painters  of  considerable  merit  in  the  United 
States.1  Probably  no  people  have  made  the  sac¬ 
rifices  made  by  Armenians,  in  proportion  to  their 
means,  for  the  relief  of  distress  during  the  war. 
There  have  been  a  few  exceptions  among  the  very 
rich  whose  moral  sense  has  been  blunted  by  lux- 

1  Visitors  to  the  San  Francisco  Exhibition  will  have  seen 
and  admired  the  work  of  the  Armenian  sculptor  Haik  Par- 
tigian,  whose  exhibits,  I  am  told  by  one  who  saw  them, 
were  among  the  best,  if  not  the  best,  of  all  the  exhibits  in 
the  Sculpture  Section.  Russia’s  great  marine  painter 
Aivazovsky  was  an  Armenian.  The  recently  instituted 
Society  of  Armenian  Artists  is  holding  its  first  exhibition 
in  Tiflis  at  the  time  of  writing. 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


109 


ury  and  self-indulgence.  They  can  be  counted 
on  the  fingers  of  one  hand.  They  belong  to  that 
class  of  cosmopolitan  financiers  and  traders  who 
are  no  more  thrilled  by  the  music  of  their  coun¬ 
try’s  or  any  country’s  name;  who  are  unmoved 
by  the  cry  of  starving  women  and  children  of 
their  own  or  any  race;  whose  home  is  the  world 
and  whose  god  is  gold ;  who  are  no  more  the  mas¬ 
ters  but  the  slaves  of  money.  But  this,  again,  is 
not  peculiar  to  Armenians ;  very  far  from  it.  It 
is  a  fraternity  that  embraces  members  of  every, 
or  almost  every,  race;  and  Armenians  are  barely 
represented  upon  it.  It  is  palpably  misleading 
as  it  is  inaccurate  to  assert  that  these  represent 
the  Armenian  nation.  In  fact,  as  far  as  my 
knowledge  goes,  the  masses  of  the  Armenian  peo¬ 
ple  are  ashamed  of  them,  because  their  worship 
of  gold  and  vanity  are  alien  to  the  national  spirit, 
and  bring  discredit  upon  the  nation.  F or  genera¬ 
tions  Armenian  educational  and  religious  institu¬ 
tions  have  been  maintained  by  voluntary  grants ; 
and  I  do  not  know  that  any  European  citizen 
bears  a  heavier  burden  for  the  needs  of  his  nation 
than  does  the  individual  Armenian. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  from  what  I  have  said 
that  all,  or  the  majority,  of  rich  Armenians  have 
been  deaf  or  indifferent  to  their  country’s  need. 
That  would  be  a  mistake  and  an  injustice.  On 


110 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


the  whole  their  response  to  the  call  of  their  af¬ 
flicted  country  has  been  satisfactory,  considering 
that  they  had  obligations  to  the  belligerent  coun¬ 
tries  to  which  they  owed  allegiance.  I  know  of 
one  contribution  of  £30, 000, 1  while  ten  Moscow 
merchants  raised  a  million  roubles  between  them 
for  their  nation’s  needs.  A  prominent  Armenian 
physician  has  relinquished  a  large  and  remuner¬ 
ative  practice  at  Petrograd  to  superintend  per¬ 
sonally  the  administration  of  an  orphanage  at 
Erzerum,  which  he  has  opened  on  his  own  private 
account.  The  Catholicos’s  palace  at  Etchmiadzin 
was  converted  into  a  hospital  for  refugees  in  the 
early  months  of  1915.  Almost  every  Armenian 
peasant  family  in  the  Caucasus  have  housed  and 
cared  for  one  or  more  refugees  in  their  humble 
cottages  ever  since  the  influx  of  their  distressed 
kinsmen  from  the  other  side  of  the  frontier  in  the 
spring  and  summer  of  1915.  I  have  not  mar¬ 
shalled  these  facts  in  a  spirit  of  flaunting  the 
virtues  of  my  race — we  certainly  hold  no  monop¬ 
oly  of  all  the  virtues,  or  indeed  of  all  the  vices, 
to  which  human  nature  is  heir — but  I  know  of 
no  better  way  to  disprove  the  baseless  aspersions 

1  It  was  reported  in  the  Tiflis  papers,  after  the  above 
was  written,  that  Mr.  Mantashian,  the  Baku  oil  king,  has 
made  a  further  donation  of  <£60,000  for  agricultural  im¬ 
provements,  and  offered  thirty  thoroughbreds  to  improve 
the  breed  of  horses  in  Armenia. 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR  111 

assiduously  disseminated  by  some  interested  peo¬ 
ple  for  purposes  of  pro-Turkish  propaganda  and 
accepted  by  the  credulous  as  true. 

Lord  Bryce  has  known  the  Armenian  people 
longer  and  more  intimately  i  an  any  eminent 
European  statesman,  historian  and  diplomatist 
has  ever  done  before,  and  his  dictum  will  no 
doubt  be  genera7  y  accepted  as  that  of  a  great  and 
final  authority.  I  therefore  make  no  apology 
for  quoting  his  lordship’s  most  recent  utterance 
on  the  subject  reported  in  the  Journal  of  the 
Royal  Society  of  Arts ,  February  2,  1917 — 

“  Having  known  a  very  large  number  of  Ar¬ 
menians,  he  had  been  greatly  struck,  not  only 
with  their  high  level  of  intelligence  and  industry, 
but  also  by  their  intense  patriotism.  He  did  not 
know  of  any  people  who  had  shown  greater  con¬ 
stancy,  patience  and  patriotism  under  difficulties 
and  sufferings  than  the  Armenians.  He  person¬ 
ally  had  always  found  them  perfectly  loyal.  He 
had  frequently  had  occasion  to  give  them  confi¬ 
dential  advice  and  to  trust  them  with  secrets, 
and  never  on  any  occasion  had  he  found  that  con¬ 
fidence  misplaced.  .  .  .  As  a  proof  of  their  loy¬ 
alty  and  devotion  to  their  country  he  might  men¬ 
tion  that  the  Armenians  living  in  America  had 


112 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


contributed  sums  enormous  in  proportion  to  their 
number  and  resources,  for  they  were  nearly  all 
persons  of  small  means,  for  the  relief  of  the  ref¬ 
ugees  who  had  been  driven  out  by  the  Turkish 
massacres.  No  people  during  the  war  had  done 
more  in  proportion  to  their  capacities  than  the 
Armenians  had  done  for  the  relief  of  their  suffer¬ 
ing  fellow-countrymen.  A  large  number  of  them 
were  also  fighting  as  volunteers  in  the  armies  of 
France,  where  they  had  displayed  the  utmost 
courage  and  valour  in  the  combats  before  Ver¬ 
dun.” 

To  return  to  the  extracts  from  the  Blue-book. 
Group  “A”  affords  a  melancholy  abundance  of 
indisputable  evidence  that  it  was  not  Kurds  and 
brigands  alone  who  did  Satan’s  work  in  Armenia, 
but  that  the  chief  culprits  were  Turkish  officials, 
high  and  low,  officers,  soldiers,  gendarmes  and 
rabble ;  even  a  member  of  parliament  took  a  turn ! 
They  not  only  played  the  principal  part  in  the 
vast  and  revolting  carnival  of  blood,  lust  and 
savagery,  but  they  took  a  delight  and  pride  in 
the  part  they  played,  and  laughed  at  the  suffer¬ 
ings  and  tortures  of  their  victims.1 

1  Some  of  the  most  distressing  and  disgraceful  cases  of 
Turkish  bestiality  appeared  in  Doctor  (Major)  Aspland’s 
report  on  the  hospital  at  Van,  which  was  under  his  charge 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR  US 

Group  “B”  bears  evidence  of  a  heroism  and 
fidelity  in  torture  and  death,  to  faith,  honour  and 
the  ideal  of  nationality,  unsurpassed  in  the  his¬ 
tory  of  mankind,  which  must  redound  to  the  eter¬ 
nal  glory  of  Christianity  and  to  the  honour  of 
the  Armenian  name.  I  respectfully  suggest  for 
consideration  by  the  Heads  of  the  Christian 
Churches  that  a  day  should  be  fixed  to  commemo¬ 
rate  annually  the  martyrdom  of  this  vast  number 
of  Armenian  Christians. 

Group  “C”  contains  proofs  of  the  conduct  of 
insurgent  Armenians  in  the  unequal  struggles 
for  self-defence,  and  it  should  be  remembered 
that  these  are  but  a  few  instances,  mainly  of  what 
was  seen  or  heard  of  by  foreigners.  The  ruined 
towns  and  villages,  the  silent  fields  and  highways 
of  this  land  of  blood  and  tears,  what  secrets  of 
desperate  heroism  in  defence  of  wife  and  child, 
mother  and  sister,  these  guard  will  probably 
never  be  known.  Group  “C”  also  contains  evi- 

as  representative  of  the  Lord  Mayor’s  Armenian  Relief 
Fund.  Describing  some  of  the  individual  cases  brought  to 
him  for  treatment.  Dr.  Aspland  says — 

“Here  is  a  young  woman  leaving  hospital  to-day,  who 
was  raped  by  eight  Kurds.  She  has  suffered  for  months, 
and  even  now,  in  spite  of  operations,  will  be  crippled  for 
the  rest  of  her  life.  Here  is  a  small  girl  aged  five,  sim¬ 
ilarly  treated  by  Turks,  and  is  now  lying  in  plaster  of 
Paris  in  order  to  recover  from  injury  to  the  hip  joint.” — 

( Ararat ,  October  191 6,  p.  172.) 


114 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


dence  of  the  fact  that  the  Turks  had  to  employ 
considerable  bodies  of  troops  to  overcome  the 
desperate  resistance  of  Armenians  in  many 
places,  such  as  Moush,  Sassoon,  Van,  etc.  A 
third  feature  in  this  group  is,  that  the  Turks  at¬ 
tributed  their  defeats  in  the  Caucasus  to  the 
Armenians.1 

Taken  together,  these  extracts,  and  the  Blue- 
book  from  which  they  are  taken,  form  a  better 
mirror  of  the  characteristics  of  the  two  races  than 
all  that  has  been  written  on  the  subject  for  a  cen¬ 
tury.  They  show  the  radical  dissimilarity  of 
their  natures,  and  the  vast  diff erence  between  the 
respective  stages  of  civilization  in  which  the  two 
races  find  themselves. 

Was  it  Buddha  or  Confucius  who  said  that 
the  principal  diff  erence  between  man  and  the  rest 
of  the  animal  world  is,  that  man  possesses  the 
feeling  of  pity  for  the  pain  and  suffering  of  his 
fellow-men  or  animals?  What  would  they  think 
of  this  strange  race  of  human  beings  who  delight 
in  torture  and  murder,  sparing  neither  sex  nor 
!  age,  nor  even  unborn  babes  and  their  mothers; 
who  inflict  pain  and  jeer  at  their  victims? 

I  remember  reading  in  one  of  Mr.  Lloyd 
George’s  speeches  not  long  ago:  “It  is  not  the 

1  Compare  this  with  the  diary  of  a  Turkish  officer,  re¬ 
ported  in  the  Russkaia  Viedomosti  (p.  75). 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


115 


trials  one  has  to  go  through  in  life,  but  the  way 
one  faces  them  that  matters,”  or  words  to  that 
effect.  This  is  as  true  of  nations  as  it  is  of  indi¬ 
viduals.  “In  the  reproof  of  chance  lies  the  true 
r  proof  of  men,”  and  of  nations.  How  has  the 
|  Armenian  nation  conducted  itself  in  this  great 
upheaval  and  borne  the  terrible  ordeal  revealed 
by  the  Blue-book :  an  ordeal  the  horror  and  mag¬ 
nitude  of  which  it  is  absolutely  beyond  the  power 
of  the  human  mind  to  imagine?  The  Blue-book 
itself  furnishes  the  answer.  From  the  first  day 
of  the  war,  Armenians  in  all  countries  understood 
the  nature  of  the  issues  involved.  They  had  no 
doubt  on  which  side  lay  their  sympathies,  which 
were  never  influenced  by  the  varying  fortunes 
of  the  war.  They  were  exposed  to  grave  risks 
and  paid  a  terrible  price.  Could  there  be  a  better 
proof  of  intellectual  rectitude  and  the  sincerity 
of  sentiment?  This,  I  trust,  will  silence  for  ever 
the  dastardly  reflections  often  cast  upon  the  hon¬ 
esty  of  the  Armenian  people.  There  are  some 
dishonest  Armenians  as  there  are  some  dishonest 
men  in  all  nations.  But,  whether  through  preju¬ 
dice,  malice,  or  ignorance  of  the  facts,  to  brand 
as  dishonest  a  whole  people  who  have  been  on  the 
Cross  for  half  a  millennium  for  their  religion  and 
patriotism,  is  unworthy  of  civilized  and  right- 
minded  men. 


116 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


There  are  two  other  important  facts  which  the 
Blue-book  establishes  beyond  dispute.  There 
was  no  revolt.  Indeed,  it  would  have  been  sheer 
madness  on  the  part  of  the  Armenians  to  attempt 
a  rising  when  their  able-bodied  manhood  was 
with  the  colours.  The  second  fact  the  Blue-book 
reveals  is,  that  the  Armenian  party  leaders  did 
their  utmost  to  dissuade  the  Young  Turks  from 
joining  the  war.  When  the  veil  of  war  has  lifted, 
and  Europe  comes  to  know  more  of  what  took 
place  behind  the  scenes  in  Constantinople  prior 
to  Turkey’s  entry  into  the  war,  it  will  be  seen  how 
near  the  personal  influence  and  eloquence  of  the 
Armenian  deputy  Zohrab  came  to  turning  the 
scale  against  the  fateful  and  suicidal  decision. 
This  brilliant  young  jurist,  an  intimate  personal 
friend  of  Enver  and  Talaat  who  sought  his  ad¬ 
vice  almost  daily,  was  murdered  by  their  orders 
on  the  way  to  Diyarbekir.  Armenians  have  been 
charged  with  a  lack  of  political  aptitude  as  well 
as  with  treachery  to  the  Ottoman  Empire.  I 
would  specially  call  the  attention  of  those  who 
hold  these  views — Europeans,  Moslems,  and 
thinking  Turks  themselves — to  the  fact  that,  at 
a  time  of  crisis,  it  was  the  Armenians  who  saw 
clearly  the  path  of  safety  for  the  empire,  and 
showed  their  loyalty  to  it,  in  spite  of  all  they  had 
suffered  in  the  past,  by  their  councils  of  pru- 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


117 


dence  to  which  the  Young  Turks  lent  a  deaf  ear. 

While  on  the  subject  of  the  Blue-book,  I  can¬ 
not  refrain  from  saying  that  I  noted  with  pro¬ 
found  regret  the  distinction  that  was  evidently 
made,  in  many  cases,  between  Catholic  and  Prot¬ 
estant  Armenians  on  the  one  hand,  and  Gre- 
gorians  on  the  other,  in  the  efforts  that  were  made 
to  save  them  from  massacre  or  deportation.  It  is 
no  secret  that  His  Holiness  the  Pope  and  Pres¬ 
ident  Wilson  intervened  through  their  represen¬ 
tatives  in  Constantinople,  and  possibly  in  Berlin 
and  Vienna,  to  stop  the  massacres.  I  record  this 
fact  with  the  deepest  gratitude.  Of  course  no 
such  distinction  can  possibly  have  been  made  by 
the  Pope  or  President  Wilson,  or  their  ambassa¬ 
dors  ;  it  was  probably  due  to  the  well-meant  activ¬ 
ities  of  subordinates  or  of  local  European  or 
American  residents. 

No  doubt  it  was  better  to  save  Catholics  and 
Protestants  than  none  at  all,  but  the  very  idea  of 
any  distinction  being  thought  of,  under  such 
fateful  circumstances,  is  obviously  contrary  to 
the  spirit  of  Christianity,  and  the  passages  re¬ 
ferring  to  it  make  sad  reading  to  a  Christian. 


IX 


EXTRACTS  FROM  THE  BLUE-BOOK 

Group  A 

THE  Archbishop  of  Erzeroum,  His  Grace 
Sempad,  who,  with  the  Vali’s  authoriza¬ 
tion,  was  returning  to  Constantinople,  was  mur¬ 
dered  at  Erzindjan  by  the  brigands  in  the  service 
of  the  Union  and  Progress  Committee.  The 
bishops  of  Trebizond,  Kaisaria,  Moush,  Bitlis, 
Sairt,  and  Erzindjan  have  all  been  murdered  by 
order  of  the  Young  Turk  Government”  (p.  23). 

“The  shortest  method  for  disposing  of  the 
women  and  children  concentrated  in  the  various 
camps  was  to  burn  them.  Fire  was  set  to  large 
wooden  sheds  in  Alidjan,  Megrakom,  Khaskegh, 
and  other  Armenian  villages,  and  these  absolutely 
helpless  women  and  children  were  roasted  to 
death.  .  .  .  And  the  executioners,  who  seem  to 
have  been  unmoved  by  this  unparalleled  sav¬ 
agery,  grasped  infants  by  one  leg  and  hurled 

118 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


119 


them  into  the  fire,  calling  out  to  the  burning 
mothers:  ‘Here  are  your  lions’  ”  (p.  86), 

“The  Turks  boasted  of  having  now  got  rid  of 
all  the  Armenians.  I  heard  it  from  the  officers 
myself,  how  they  revelled  in  thought  that  the 
Armenians  had  been  got  rid  of”  (p.  88). 

“It  was  heartrending  to  hear  the  cries  of  the 
people  and  children  who  were  being  burnt  to 
death  in  their  houses.  The  soldiers  took  great 
delight  in  hearing  them,  and  when  people  who 
were  out  in  the  streets  during  the  bombardment 
fell  dead  the  soldiers  merely  laughed  at  them” 
(p.  90). 

“Every  officer  boasted  of  the  number  he  had 
personally  massacred  as  his  share  in  ridding 
Turkey  of  the  Armenian  race”  (p.  90). 

“Mehmed  Effendi,  the  Ottoman  deputy  for 
Gendje  ( Ginj ) ,  collected  about  forty  women  and 
children  and  killed  them”  (p.  94) . 

“Of  the  other  children,  a  girl  was  taken  away 
and  only  escaped  many  months  later  when  the 
Russians  came.  Very  reluctantly  she  poured  out 


120 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


her  story  to  the  Stapletons,  from  which  it  ap¬ 
peared  that  she  had  been  handed  round  to  ten 
officers  after  the  murder  of  her  husband  and  his 
mother,  to  be  their  sport”  (p.  225) . 

“  ‘See  what  care  the  Government  is  taking  of 
the  Armenians/  the  Yali  said,  and  she  returned 
home  surprised  and  pleased ;  but  when  she  visited 
the  Orphanage  again  several  days  later,  there 
were  only  thirteen  of  the  700  children  left — the 
rest  had  disappeared.  They  had  been  taken, 
she  learnt,  to  a  lake  six  hours’  journey  by  road 
from  the  town  and  drowned”  (p.  260). 

“Sister  D.  A.  was  told,  at  Constantinople,  that 
Turks  of  all  parties  were  united  in  their  approval 
of  what  was  being  done  to  the  Armenians,  and 
that  Enver  Pasha  openly  boasted  of  it  as  his  per¬ 
sonal  achievement.  Talaat  Bey,  too,  was  re¬ 
ported  to  have  remarked,  on  receiving  news  of 
Vartkes’s1  assassination:  ‘There  is  no  room  in  the 
Empire  for  both  Armenians  and  Turks.  Either 
they  had  to  go  or  we’  ”  (p.  261) . 

1  Mr.  Vartkes  was  an  Armenian  deputy  in  the  Ottoman 
Parliament,  who  was  murdered,  together  with  another 
deputy,  Mr.  Zohrab,  when  he  was  being  escorted  by  gen¬ 
darmes  from  Aleppo  to  be  court-martialled  at  Diyarbekir 
t(see  Documents  7  and  9). — Editor. 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


121 


“A  crowd  of  Turkish  women  and  children  fol¬ 
low  the  police  about  like  a  lot  of  vultures,  and 
seize  anything  they  can  lay  their  hands  on,  and 
when  the  more  valuable  things  are  carried  out  of 
a  house  by  the  police,  they  rush  in  and  take  the 
balance.  I  see  this  performance  every  day  with 
my  own  eyes”  (p.  289). 

“It  was  a  real  extermination  and  slaughter  of 
the  innocents,  an  unheard-of  thing,  a  black  page 
stained  with  the  flagrant  violation  of  the  most 
sacred  rights  of  humanity,  of  Christianity,  of 
nationality”  (p.  291). 

“When  the  Governor  was  petitioned  to  allow 
the  infants  to  be  entrusted  to  charitable  Moslem 
families,  to  save  them  from  dying  on  the  journey, 
he  replied:  ‘I  will  not  leave  here  so  much  as  the 
odour  of  the  Armenians;  go  away  into  the  des¬ 
erts  of  Arabia  and  dump  your  Armenia  there’  ” 
(p.  328). 

“P.  P.,  the  college  blacksmith,  was  so  terribly 
beaten  that  a  month  later  he  was  still  unable  to 
walk.  Another  was  shod  with  horse-shoes.  At 
Y.,  Mr.  A.  D.  (brother-in-law  of  the  pastor, 
A.  E.,  who  suffered  martyrdom  at  Sivas  twenty- 
one  years  ago)  had  his  finger-nails  torn  out  for 


122 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


refusing  to  accept  Islam.  ‘How/  he  had  an¬ 
swered,  ‘can  I  abandon  the  Christ  whom  I  have 
preached  for  twenty  years?’  ”  (P.  378.) 

“In  Angora  I  learned  that  the  tanners  and  the 
butchers  of  the  city  had  been  called  to  Asi  Yoz- 
gad,  and  the  Armenians  committed  to  them  for 
murder.  The  tanner’s  knife  is  a  circular  affair, 
while  the  butcher’s  knife  is  a  small  axe,  and  they 
killed  people  by  using  the  instruments  which  they 
knew  best  how  to  use”  (p.  385) . 

“The  Ottoman  Bank  President  showed  bank¬ 
notes  soaked  with  blood  and  struck  through  with 
daggers  with  the  blot  round  the  hole,  and  some 
torn  that  had  evidently  been  ripped  from  the 
clothing  of  people  who  had  been  killed — and  these 
were  placed  on  ordinary  deposit  in  the  bank  by 
Turkish  officers”  (p.  386). 

“One  girl  had  hanged  herself  on  the  way;  oth¬ 
ers  had  poison  with  them.  Mothers  were  holding 
out  their  beautiful  babies  and  begging  the  mis¬ 
sionaries  to  take  them”  (p.  403) . 

“What  was  the  meaning  of  all  this?  It  was 
the  deathblow  aimed  at  Christianity  in  Turkey, 
or,  in  other  words,  the  extermination  of  the  Ar- 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


123 


menian  people — their  extermination  or  amalga¬ 
mation”  (p.  404). 

“During  the  weary  days  of  travel  I  had  as  my 
companion  a  Turkish  captain,  who,  as  the  hours 
dragged  by,  came  to  look  on  me  with  less  of  sus¬ 
picion,  growing  quite  friendly  at  times.  Arrived 

at - the  captain  went  out  among  the  Armenian 

crowd  and  soon  returned  with  an  Armenian  girl 
of  about  fifteen  years.  She  was  forced  into  a 
compartment  of  an  adjoining  railway  coach,  in 
company  with  a  Turkish  woman.  When  she  saw 
that  her  mother  was  not  allowed  to  accompany 
her,  she  began  to  realize  something  of  the  import 
of  it  all.  She  grew  frantic  in  her  efforts  to  es¬ 
cape,  scratching  at  the  window,  begging,  scream¬ 
ing,  tearing  her  hair  and  wringing  her  hands, 
while  the  equally  grief-crazed  mother  stood  on  the 
railway  platform,  helpless  in  her  effort  to  save 
her  daughter.  The  captain,  seeing  the  uncon¬ 
cealed  disapproval  in  my  face,  came  up  and  said: 
T  suppose,  Effendi,  you  don’t  approve  of  such 
things,  but  let  me  tell  you  how  it  is.  Why,  this 
girl  is  fortunate.  I’ll  take  her  home  with  me, 
raise  her  as  a  Moslem  servant  in  my  house.  She 
will  be  well  cared  for  and  saved  from  a  worse 
fate — besides  that,  I  even  gave  the  mother  a  lira 
gold  piece  for  the  girl.’  And,  as  though  that 


124 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


were  not  convincing  enough,  he  added:  ‘Why, 
these  scoundrels  have  killed  two  of  our  Moslems 
right  here  in  this  city,  within  the  last  few  days,’ 
as  though  that  were  excuse  enough,  if  excuse 
were  needed,  for  annihilating  the  whole  Arme¬ 
nian  race.  I  could  not  refrain  from  giving  him 
my  version  of  the  rotten,  diabolical  scheme, 
which,  however,  fell  from  his  back  like  water” 
(p.  410). 

“I  learned  here,  too,  of  a  nurse  who  had  been 
in  one  of  the  mission  hospitals,  who  two  days 
before  my  arrival  there  had  become  almost  crazed 
by  the  fear  of  falling  into  the  hands  of  the  human 
fiends,  and  had  ended  her  life  with  poison.  Were 
these  isolated  or  unusual  instances,  it  would  ex¬ 
cite  no  comment  in  this  year  of  unusual  things, 
but  when  we  know  of  these  things  going  on  all 
over  the  empire,  repeated  in  thousands  of  in¬ 
stances,  we  begin  to  realize  the  enormity  of  the 
crimes  committed.  I  spoke  again  to  the  captain : 
‘Why  are  you  taking  such  brutal  measures  to 
accomplish  your  aim?  Why  not  accept  the  offer 
of  a  friendly  nation,  which  offers  to  pay  transpor¬ 
tation  if  you  will  send  these  people  out  of  the 
country  to  a  place  of  safety?’  He  replied:  ‘Why, 
don’t  you  understand,  we  don’t  want  to  have  to 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


125 


repeat  this  thing  again  after  a  few  years?  It’s 
hot  down  in  the  deserts  of  Arabia,  and  there  is 
no  water,  and  these  people  can’t  stand  a  hot 
climate,  don’t  you  see?’  Yes,  I  saw.  Any  one 
could  see  what  would  happen  to  most  of  them, 
long  before  Arabia  was  reached”  (p.  411) . 

“Crowds  of  Turkish  women  were  going  about 
insolently  prying  into  house  after  house  to  find 
valuable  rugs  or  other  articles”  (p.  411). 

“The  nation  is  being  systematically  done  to 
death  by  a  cruel  and  crafty  method,  and  their  ex¬ 
termination  is  only  a  question  of  time”  (p.  432). 

“Women  with  little  children  in  their  arms,  or 
in  the  last  days  of  pregnancy,  were  driven  along 
under  the  whip  like  cattle.  Three  different  cases 
came  under  my  knowledge  where  the  woman  was 
delivered  on  the  road,  and  because  her  brutal 
driver  hurried  her  along,  she  died  of  haemorrhage” 
(p.472). 

“I  saw  one  young  woman  drop  down  ex¬ 
hausted.  The  Turk  gave  her  two  or  three  blows 
with  his  stick  and  she  raised  herself  painfully” 
(p.  484). 


126 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


“I  saw  two  women,  one  of  them  old,  the  other 
very  young  and  very  pretty,  carrying  the  corpse 
of  another  young  woman;  I  had  scarcely  passed 
them  when  cries  of  terror  arose.  The  girl  was 
struggling  in  the  clutches  of  a  brute  who  was 
trying  to  drag  her  away.  The  corpse  had  fallen 
to  the  ground,  the  girl,  now  half-unconscious, 
was  writhing  by  the  side  of  it,  the  old  woman  was 
sobbing  and  wringing  her  hands”  (p.  564). 

“Sixteen  hundred  Armenians  have  had  their 
throats  cut  in  the  prisons  of  Diyarbekir.  The 
Arashnort  (bishop)  was  mutilated,  drenched 
with  alcohol,  and  burnt  alive  in  the  prison  yard, 
in  the  middle  of  a  carousing  crowd  of  gendarmes, 
who  even  accompanied  the  scene  with  music.  The 
massacres  at  Benia,  Adiaman,  the  Selefka  have 
been  carried  out  deliberately;  there  is  not  a  single 
male  left  above  the  age  of  IS  years;  the  girls  have 
been  outraged  mercilessly;  we  have  seen  their 
mutilated  corpses  tied  together  in  batches  of  four, 
eight,  or  ten,  and  cast  into  the  Euphrates.  The 
majority  had  been  mutilated  in  an  indescribable 
manner”  (p.  21). 

“Five  hundred  young  men  were  shot  outside 
the  town  without  any  formality.  During  the 
following  two  days  the  same  process  was  carried 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


m 


Dut  with  heartless  and  cold-blooded  thoroughness 
in  the  eighty  Armenian  villages  of  Ardjish,  Adil- 
jevas,  and  the  rest  of  the  district  north  of  Lake 
Van.  In  this  manner  some  24,000  Armenians 
were  killed  in  three  days,  their  young  women  car¬ 
ried  away  and  their  homes  looted”  (p.  78) . 

“According  to  Turkish  Government  statistics 
120,000  Armenians  were  killed  in  this  district” 
(p.  95). 

“The  immense  procession,  sinking  under  its 
agony  and  fatigue,  forces  itself  along  and  moves 
forward  without  respite.  ...  No  pen  can  de¬ 
scribe  what  this  tragic  procession  has  endured, 
or  what  experiences  it  has  lived  through,  on  its 
interminable  road.  The  least  detail  of  them 
makes  the  human  heart  quail,  and  draws  an  un¬ 
quenchable  stream  of  bitter  tears  from  one’s 
eyes.  .  .  .  Each  fraction  of  the  long  procession 
has  its  individual  history,  its  especial  pangs.  .  .  . 
Here  is  a  mother  with  her  six  children,  one  on  her 
back,  the  second  clasped  to  her  breast;  the  third 
falls  down  on  the  road,  and  cries  and  wails  be¬ 
cause  it  cannot  drag  itself  further.  The  three 
others  begin  to  wail  in  sympathy,  and  the  poor 
mother  stands  stock  still,  tearless,  like  a  statue, 
utterly  powerless  to  help”  (p.  197). 


128 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


“Babies  were  shot  in  their  mothers’  arms,  small 
children  were  horribly  mutilated,  women  were 
stripped  and  beaten.  The  villages  were  not  pre¬ 
pared  for  attack;  many  made  no  resistance;  oth¬ 
ers  resisted  until  their  ammunition  gave  out”  (p. 
36). 

“A  little  bride  and  a  slim  young  girl  sidled  up 
to  our  wagon  to  talk.  In  reply  to  our  talk  they 
told  us  that  they  were  ‘busy  taking  care  of  the 
babies.’  x  We  asked  what  babies,  and  they  said: 
‘Oh,  those  the  effendis  stop  here;  the  mothers 
nurse  them  and  then  go.’  We  asked  if  there  were 
many,  and  were  told  that  every  house  was  full. 
We  were  watched  too  closely  to  make  calls  pos¬ 
sible.  Afterwards  we  found  an  officer  ready  to 
talk,  who  said:  ‘We  take  them  off  after  a  while 
and  kill  them.  What  can  we  do?  The  mothers 
cannot  take  them,  and  the  Government  cannot 
take  care  of  them  for  ever’  ”  (p.  359) . 

“This  frightful  suffering  inspires  no  pity  in 
the  ruthless  officials,  who  throw  themselves  upon 
their  wretched  victims,  armed  with  whips  and 
cudgels,  without  distinction  of  sex  or  age”  (p. 
414). 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


129 


Group  B 

“Many  Armenian  women  preferred  tc  throw 
themselves  into  the  Euphrates  with  their  infants, 
or  committed  suicide  in  their  homes.  The  Eu¬ 
phrates  and  Tigris  have  become  the  sepulchre  of 
thousands  of  Armenians’’  (p.  14), 

“While  the  Armenian  refugees  had  been  mutu¬ 
ally  helpful  and  self-sacrificing,  these  Moslems 
showed  themselves  absolutely  selfish,  callous  and 
indifferent  to  each  other’s  suffering”  (p.  42) . 

“Many  went  mad  and  threw  their  children 
away;  some  knelt  down  and  prayed  amid  the 
flames  in  which  their  bodies  were  burning ;  others 
shrieked  and  cried  for  help  which  came  from  no¬ 
where”  (p.  86). 

“Several  young  women,  who  were  in  danger  of 
falling  into  the  Turks’  hands,  threw  themselves 
from  the  rocks,  some  of  them  with  their  infants 
in  their  arms”  (p.  87) . 

* 

“Among  the  massacred  were  two  monks,  one 
of  them  being  the  Father  Superior  of  Sourp 
Garabed,  Yeghishe  Vartabed,  who  had  a  chance 


ISO 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


of  escaping,  but  did  not  wish  to  be  separated  from 
his  flock,  and  was  killed  with  them”  (p.  96) . 

“In  some  cases  safety  was  bought  by  profess¬ 
ing  Mohammedanism,  but  many  died  as  martyrs 
to  the  faith”  (p.  102). 

“The  mother  resisted,  and  was  thrown  over  a 
bridge  by  one  of  the  Turks.  The  poor  woman 
broke  her  arm,  but  her  mule-driver  dragged  her 
up  again.  Again  the  same  Turks  threw  her 
down,  with  one  of  her  daughters,  from  the  top 
of  the  mountain.  The  moment  the  married 
daughter  saw  her  mother  and  sister  thrown  down, 
she  thrust  the  baby  in  her  arms  upon  another 
woman,  ran  after  them,  crying,  ‘Mother,  mother !’ 
and  threw  herself  down  the  same  precipice”  (p. 
274). 

“Sirpouhi  and  Santukht,  two  young  women  of 
Ketcheurd,  a  village  east  of  Sivas,  who  were 
being  led  off  to  the  harem,  by  Turks,  threw  them¬ 
selves  into  the  river  Halys,  and  were  drowned 
with  their  infants  in  their  arms.  Mile.  Sirpouhi, 
the  nineteen-year-old  daughter  of  Garabed  Tu- 
fenjjian  of  Herag,  a  graduate  of  the  American 
College  of  Marsovan,  was  offered  the  choice  of 
saving  herself  by  embracing  Islam  and  marrying 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


131 


a  Turk.  Sirpouhi  retorted  that  it  was  an  out¬ 
rage  to  murder  her  father  and  then  make  her  a 
proposal  of  marriage.  She  would  have  nothing 
to  do  with  a  godless  and  a  murderous  people; 
whereupon  she,  and  seventeen  other  Armenian 
girls  who  had  refused  conversion,  were  shame¬ 
fully  ill-treated  and  afterwards  killed  near 
Tchamli-Bel  gorge”  (p.  325), 

4 'Many  began  to  doubt  even  the  existence  of 
God.  Under  the  severe  strain  many  individuals 
became  demented,  some  of  them  permanently. 
There  were  also  some  examples  of  the  greatest 
heroism  and  faith,  and  some  started  out  on  the 
journey  courageously  and  calmly,  saying  in  fare¬ 
well:  'Pray  for  us.  We  shall  not  see  you  again 
in  this  world,  but  some  time  we  shall  meet  again’  ” 
(p.  335). 

"  ‘No,  I  cannot  see  what  you  see,  and  I  cannot 
accept  what  I  cannot  understand.’  So  the  ox- 
w  carts  came  to  the  door  and  took  the  family  away. 
^The  wife  was  a  delicate  lady  and  the  two  beauti¬ 
ful  daughters  well  educated.  They  were  offered 
homes  in  harems,  but  said :  ‘N o,  we  cannot  deny 
our  Lord.  We  will  go  with  our  father’  ”  (p. 
354). 


132 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


‘In  a  mountain  village  there  was  a  girl  who 
made  herself  famous.  Here,  as  everywhere  else, 
the  men  were  taken  out  at  night  and  pitifully 
killed.  Then  the  women  and  children  were  sent 
in  a  crowd,  but  a  large  number  of  young  girls 
and  brides  were  kept  behind.  This  girl,  who  had 
been  a  pupil  in  the  school  at  X.,  was  sent  before 
the  Governor,  the  Judge,  and  the  Council  to¬ 
gether,  and  they  said  to  her:  ‘Your  father  is  dead, 
your  brothers  are  dead,  and  all  your  other  rela¬ 
tives  are  gone,  but  we  have  kept  you  because  we 
do  not  wish  to  make  you  suffer.  Now  just  be  a 
good  Turkish  girl  and  you  shall  be  married  to  a 
Turkish  officer  and  be  comfortable  and  happy.’ 
It  is  said  that  she  looked  quietly  into  their 
faces  and  replied:  ‘My  father  is  not  dead,  my 
brothers  are  not  dead;  it  is  true  you  have  killed 
them,  but  they  live  in  Heaven.  I  shall  live  with 
them.  I  can  never  do  this  if  I  am  unfaithful  to 
my  conscience.  As  for  marrying,  I  have  been 
taught  that  a  woman  must  never  marry  a  man 
unless  she  loves  him.  This  is  a  part  of  our  reli¬ 
gion.  How  can  I  love  a  man  who  comes  from  a 
nation  that  has  so  recently  killed  my  friends  ?  I 
should  neither  be  a  good  Christian  girl  nor  a  good 
Turkish  girl  if  I  did  so.  Do  with  me  what  you 
wish.’  They  sent  her  away,  with  the  few  other 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR  133 

brave  ones,  into  the  hopeless  land.  Stories  of  this 
kind  can  also  be  duplicated”  (p.  355). 

“The  men  were  finally  convinced  of  the  use¬ 
lessness  of  their  efforts  when  one  of  the  younger 
and  prettiest  girls  spoke  up  for  herself  and  said : 
‘No  one  can  mix  in  my  decisions;  I  will  not 
“turn”  [change  her  religion],  and  it  is  I  myself 
that  say  it’  ”  (p.  357). 

“Mr.  A.  F.,  a  colporteur,  had  been  willing  to 
embrace  Islam,  but  his  wife  refused  to  recognize 
his  apostasy,  and  declared  that  she  would  go  into 
exile  with  the  rest  of  the  people,  so  he  went  with 
his  wife  and  was  killed”  (p.  378). 

“Again  and  again  they  said  to  me:  ‘Oh,  if  they 
would  only  kill  me  now,  I  would  not  care;  but  I 
fear  they  will  try  to  force  me  to  become  a  Mo¬ 
hammedan’ ”  (p.  403). 

'  i 

“When  we  consider  the  number  forced  into 
exile  and  the  number  beaten  to  death  and  tor¬ 
tured  in  a  thousand  ways,  the  comparatively 
small  number  that  turned  Moslem  is  a  tribute  to 
the  staunchness  of  their  hold  on  Christianity” 
(p.  413). 


134 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


“If  the  events  of  the  past  year  demonstrate 
anything,  they  show  the  practical  failure  of  Mo¬ 
hammedanism  in  its  struggle  for  existence  against 
Christianity — in  its  attempt  to  eliminate  a  race 
which,  because  of  Christian  education,  has  been 
proving  increasingly  a  menace  to  stagnating 
Moslem  civilization.  We  may  call  it  political 
necessity  or  what  not,  but  in  essence  it  is  a  nom¬ 
inally  ruling  class,  jealous  of  a  more  progressive 
Christian  race,  striving  by  methods  of  primitive 
savagery  to  maintain  the  leading  place”  (p.  413) . 

“The  courage  of  that  brave  little  doctor’s  wife, 
who  knew  she  must  take  her  two  babies  and  face 
starvation  and  death  with  them!  Many  began 
to  come  to  her  home — to  her,  for  comfort  and 
cheer,  and  she  gave  it.  I  have  never  seen  such 
courage  before.  You  have  to  go  to  the  darkest 
places  of  the  earth  to  see  the  brightest  lights, 
to  the  most  obscure  spot  to  find  the  greatest 
heroes. 

“Her  bright  smile,  with  no  trace  of  fear  in  it, 
was  like  a  beacon  light  in  that  mud  village,  where 
hundreds  were  doomed. 

“It  was  not  because  she  did  not  understand 
how  they  felt;  she  was  one  of  them.  It  was  not 
because  she  had  no  dear  ones  in  peril;  her  hus¬ 
band  was  far  away,  ministering  to  those  who  were 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR  135 

sending  her  and  her  babies  to  destruction”  (p. 
418). 

“One  woman  gave  birth  to  twins  in  one  of  those 
crowded  trucks,  and  crossing  a  river  she  threw 
both  her  babies  and  then  herself  into  the  water” 
(p.  420). 

“And  how  are  the  people  going?  As  they 
came  into  B.  M.,  weary  and  with  swollen  and 
bleeding  feet,  clasping  their  babes  to  their  breasts, 
they  utter  not  one  murmur  or  word  of  complaint; 
but  you  see  their  eyes  move  and  hear  the  words : 
‘For  Jesus’  sake,  for  Jesus’  sake!’  ”  (p.  478). 

“Let  me  quote  from  W.  EfFendi,  from  a  letter 
he  wrote  a  day  before  his  deportation  with  his 
young  wife  and  infant  child  and  with  the  whole 
congregation — - 

“  ‘We  now  understand  that  it  is  a  great  miracle 
that  our  nation  has  lived  so  many  years  amongst 
such  a  nation  as  this.  From  this  we  realize  that 
God  can  and  has  shut  the  mouths  of  lions  for 
many  years.  May  God  restrain  them!  I  am 
afraid  they  mean  to  kill  some  of  us,  cast  some  of 
us  into  most  cruel  starvation  and  send  the  rest 
out  of  this  country ;  so  I  have  very  little  hope  of 
seeing  you  again  in  this  world.  But  be  sure  that. 


136 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


by  God’s  special  help,  I  will  do  my  best  to  en¬ 
courage  others  to  die  manly.  I  will  also  look  for 
God’s  help  for  myself  to  die  as  a  Christian.  May 
this  country  see  that,  if  we  cannot  live  here  as 
men,  we  can  die  as  men.  May  many  die  as  men 
of  God.  May  God  forgive  this  nation  all  their 
sin  which  they  do  without  knowing.  May  the 
Armenians  teach  Jesus’  life  by  their  death,  which 
they  could  not  teach  by  their  life  or  have  failed 
in  showing  forth.  It  is  my  great  desire  to  see 
a  Reverend  Ali,  or  Osman,  or  Mohammed.  May 
Jesus  soon  see  many  Turkish  Christians  as  the 
fruit  of  His  blood. 

“  ‘May  the  war  end  soon,  in  order  to  save  the 
Moslems  from  their  cruelty  (for  they  increase 
in  that  from  day  to  day)  and  from  their  in¬ 
grained  habit  of  torturing  others.  Therefore  we 
are  waiting  on  God,  for  the  sake  of  the  Moslems 
as  well  as  of  the  Armenians.  May  He  appear 
soon’  ”  (p.  504) . 

/  .  v 

“Before  the  girls  were  taken,  the  Kaimakam 
asked  each  one,  in  the  presence  of  the  Principal 
of  the  College,  whether  they  wanted  to  become 
Mohammedans  and  stay,  or  go.  They  all  replied 
that  they  would  go.  Only  Miss  H.  became  a 
Mohammedan,  and  went  to  live  with  G.  Profes¬ 
sors  E.  and  F.  F.  had  been  arrested  with  other 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


1ST 


Armenians,  but  in  the  name  of  all  the  teachers 
some  £250  to  £300  were  presented  to  the  officials, 
and  so  they  were  let  free”  (p.  370). 

“The  priests  were  among  the  first  to  be  sent 
off.  A  Turk  described  how  K.  K.  was  killed. 
They  stripped  him  of  all  his  clothes,  excepting 
his  underclothing.  With  his  hands  bound  behind 
his  back,  he  knelt,  with  his  son  beside  him,  and 
they  finished  him  off  with  axes,  while  he  was 
praying.  The  same  description  was  given  of  the 
execution  of  L.  L. — how  they  took  off  his  head 
by  hacking  down  into  his  shoulders  with  axes 
and  carving  the  head  out  like  a  bust”  (p.  371) . 

Group  C 

if 

“But  the  [Armenian]  revolutionists  conducted 
themselves  with  remarkable  restraint  and  pru¬ 
dence;  controlled  their  hot-headed  youth;  pa¬ 
trolled  the  streets  to  prevent  skirmishes ;  and  bade 
the  villagers  endure  in  silence:  better  a  village  or 
two  burned  unavenged  than  that  any  attempt 
at  reprisals  should  furnish  an  excuse  for  massa¬ 
cre”  (p.  33). 

“Some  of  the  rules  for  their  men  [the  Arme¬ 
nian  defenders  of  Van]  were:  ‘Keep  clean;  do 


138  ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 

not  drink;  tell  the  truth;  do  not  curse  the  religion 
of  the  enemy’  ”  (p.  35) . 

“But,  enraged  as  Djevdet  was  by  this  unex¬ 
pected  and  prolonged  resistance,  was  it  to  be 
hoped  that  he  could  be  persuaded  to  spare  the 
lives  of  one  of  these  men,  women  and  children?” 
(p.  39). 

“Not  all  the  Turks  had  fled  from  the  city 
[Van].  Some  old  men  and  women  and  children 
had  stayed  behind,  many  of  them  in  hiding.  The 
Armenian  soldiers,  unlike  Turks,  were  not  mak¬ 
ing  war  on  such”  (p.  41). 

“Our  Turkish  refugees  cost  us  a  fearful  price. 
.  .  .  Then,  for  four  days  more,  two  Armenian 
nurses  cared  for  the  [Turkish]  sick  ones  at  night 
and  an  untrained  man  nurse  helped  me  during 
the  daytime”  (p.  42). 

i 

“Mr.  Yarrow,  seeing  all  this,  said:  T  am 
amazed  at  the  self-control  of  the  Armenians,  for 
though  the  Turks  did  not  spare  a  single  wounded 
Armenian,  the  Armenians  are  helping  us  to  save 
the  Turks — a  thing  that  I  do  not  believe  even 
Europeans  would  do’  ”  (p.  70) . 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR  139 

“The  Turks  offered  to  the  Georgians  the  prov¬ 
inces  of  Koutais  and  of  Tiflis,  the  Batoum  dis¬ 
trict  and  a- part  of  the  province  of  Trebizond;  to 
the  Tartars,  Shousha,  the  mountain  country  as 
far  as  Vladikavkaz,  Bakou,  and  a  part  of  the 
province  of  Elisavetpol;  to  the  Armenians  they 
offered  Kars,  the  province  of  Erivan,  a  part  of 
Elisavetpol ;  a  fragment  of  the  province  of  Erze- 
roum,  Van  and  Bitlis.  According  to  the  Young 
Turk  scheme,  all  these  groups  were  to  become 
autonomous  under  a  Turkish  protectorate.  The 
Erzeroum  Congress  refused  these  proposals,  and 
advised  the  Young  Turks  not  to  hurl  themselves 
into  the  European  conflagration — a  dangerous 
adventure  which  would  lead  Turkey  to  ruin”  (p. 
80). 

“The  Turkish  regulars  and  Kurds,  amounting 
now  to  something  like  30,000  altogether,  pushed 
higher  and  higher  up  the  heights  and  surrounded 
the  main  Armenian  position  at  close  quarters. 
Then  followed  one  of  those  desperate  and  heroic; 
struggles  for  life  which  have  always  been  the  " 
pride  of  mountaineers.  Men,  women  and  chil¬ 
dren  fought  with  knives,  scythes,  stones,  and  any¬ 
thing  else  they  could  handle.  They  rolled  blocks 
of  stone  down  the  steep  slopes,  killing  many  of 


140  ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 

the  enemy.  In  a  frightful  hand-to-hand  combat, 
women  were  seen  thrusting  their  knives  into  the 
throats  of  Turks  and  thus  accounting  for  many 
of  them.  On  August  5,  the  last  day  of  the  fight¬ 
ing,  the  blood-stained  rocks  of  Antok  were  cap¬ 
tured  by  the  Turks.  The  Armenian  warriors 
of  Sassoun,  except  those  who  had  worked  round 
to  the  rear  of  the  Turks  to  attack  them  on  their 
flanks,  had  died  in  battle”  (p.  87). 

“In  the  first  week  of  July  20,000  soldiers  ar¬ 
rived  from  Constantinople  by  way  of  Harpout 
with  munitions  and  eleven  guns,  and  laid  siege 
to  Moush”  (p*  89). 

“The  energetic  Armenian  committees  have 
taken  care  of  their  own  people,  and  have  been 
unexpectedly  generous  to  the  Syrians  who  are 
quartered  in  their  midst”  (p.  107). 

“He  met  an  Armenian  officer  who  had  escaped 
from  the  Turks,  who  told  him  of  the  deportation 
and  massacre  of  the  Armenians.  He  said  that 
the  attitude  of  the  Turks  towards  the  Armenians 
was  more  or  less  good  at  the  beginning  of  the  war, 
but  it  was  suddenly  changed  after  the  Turkish 
defeat  at  Sari-Kamysh,  as  they  laid  the  blame 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR  141 

for  this  defeat  upon  the  Armenians,  though  he 
could  not  tell  why”  (p.  231). 

“The  fact  cannot  be  too  strongly  emphasized 
that  there  was  no  'rebellion’  ”  (p.  34). 


I 


X 

GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  ARMENIA - THE  HATE  DUKE  OF  AR¬ 
GYLL’S  VIEWS - AN  APPEAL  TO  BRITAIN 

THERE  is  no  brighter  page  in  the  glorious 
history  of  the  British  Empire  than  the  rec¬ 
ords  of  the  liberties  that  conduce  to  the  content¬ 
ment  and  happiness  of  peoples — freedom  of 
thought  and  worship,  freedom  of  speech  and  asso¬ 
ciation,  freedom  of  movement  and  habitation, 
freedom  of  language,  etc. ;  as  well  as  measures  of 
self-government  varying  in  accordance  with  local 
needs  and  circumstances — granted  unstintingly 
to  the  great  family  of  nations  and  races  constitut¬ 
ing  that  marvellous  commonwealth.  This  policy 
of  broad,  liberal  justice  has  proved,  under  the 
stern  test  of  this  great  war,  the  highest  states¬ 
manship  and  the  strongest  bond  of  empire.  Free¬ 
dom,  justice,  humanity  have  proved  an  infinitely 
stronger  impetus  to  loyalty  than  “frightfulness,” 
a  stronger  cement,  a  superior  and  better  “pay¬ 
ing”  stock-in-trade  of  empire  by  far  than  the 
jack-boot  and  the  yatagan .  The  conclusive  and 
practical  demonstration  of  this  great  fact  by  the 

142 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


143 


British  Empire  will  probably  exercise  a  far- 
reaching  influence  for  good  on  the  future  poli¬ 
cies  of  empires  and  the  liberties  of  mankind.  The 
British  Flag  has  not  only  carried  security,  order 
and  justice  wherever  it  has  gone,  it  has  scrupu¬ 
lously  respected  religious  and  national  sentiment 
everywhere.  It  has  not  denied  to  the  peoples 
under  its  sway,  or  attempted  to  suppress,  the  sen¬ 
timents  and  allegiances  which  it  has  itself  held 
sacred.  It  has  maintained  the  freedom  of  the 
seas  as  I  believe  no  international  device  could 
have  achieved  it.  I  do  not  say  this  to  please  Brit¬ 
ish  readers.  I  have  lived  and  travelled  among 
small  peoples  and  subject  peoples  large  and 
small,  and  that  is  the  impression  I  have  gathered. 
Thus  the  Union  Jack  has  become  a  symbol  of 
freedom  and  fairplay  the  world  over,  and  per¬ 
secuted  peoples  have  long  had  the  conviction, 
deep  down  in  their  hearts,  that  British  influence 
is  continually  at  work  towards  their  ultimate 
liberation.  If  we  were  to  reverse  Mr.  Glad¬ 
stone’s  famous  challenge  concerning  Austria,  and 
ask,  mutatis  mutandis:  “Can  any  one  put  his 
finger  on  the  map  of  the  world  and  say,  ‘Here  the 
British  Empire  has  wrought  evil’?”  it  may  be 
that  Count  Reventlow  himself  and  the  author  of 
the  “Hymn  of  Hate”  might  find  themselves  baf¬ 
fled.  However  opinions  may  differ  as  to  the 


144 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


justice  of  some  of  her  wars,  the  just  and  liberal 
treatment  of  the  peoples  that  have  come  under 
British  dominion  is  an  indisputable  historical  fact 
to  which  the  masses  of  mankind  owe  at  least  as 
much  gratitude  as  they  do  to  the  French  Revo¬ 
lution.  Ireland  may  be  singled  out,  and  not 
without  reason,  if  I  may  say  so,  as  the  one  shaded 
spot  on  this  bright  page  of  the  story  of  the  spread 
of  British  liberty.  To  the  neutral  observer  it 
certainly  seems  strange  that  Ireland,  so  near  the 
home  of  liberty  and  the  stronghold  of  democratic 
institutions,  should  be  so  long  denied  the  full  and 
free  enjoyment  of  those  blessings  liberally  be¬ 
stowed  upon  the  more  distant  parts  of  the  empire. 
Possibly  neutral  observers  do  not  and  cannot 
understand  the  difficulties  and  obstacles  that  have 
hitherto  proved  insuperable.  It  is  outside  the 
scope  of  my  subject  and  beyond  my  competence 
to  enter  into  a  discussion  of  the  Irish  question 
here,  but  this  much  I  may  say,  that  Ireland  should 
convince  rulers  in  all  countries  that  material 
prosperity  alone  “is  no  remedy.’"  Security,  order, 
prosperity,  an  efficient  and  equitable  administra¬ 
tion  may  palliate  but  can  never  heal  a  political 
injustice.  They  can  never  satisfy  the  legitimate 
aspirations  for  self-rule  of  a  high-spirited  and 
cultured  people  conscious  of  a  strong,  indestruc¬ 
tible  will  as  well  as  the  undoubted  capacity  to 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


115 


govern  itself.  On  the  other  hand,  to  compare 
the  wrongs  and  sufferings  of  Ireland  (and  Po¬ 
land)  with  the  agony  of  Armenia,  as  is  sometimes 
done,  is  to  compare  a  headache,  an  acute  head¬ 
ache  if  you  will,  with  the  Black  Death. 

It  is  in  keeping  with  the  ill-fortune  that  has 
dogged  the  footsteps  of  the  Armenian  people  for 
five  centuries  that  Armenia  should  have  been  the 
one  exception  to  the  rule;  the  one  country  which 
has  been  denied  the  blessings  and  benefits  that 
have  accrued  to  every  small  people  which  has 
come  within  the  sphere  of,  or  whose  fortunes  have 
been  directly  or  indirectly  aff ected  by,  the  policy 
or  interests  of  the  British  Empire. 

One  of  the  most  striking  features  of  what  has 
been  said  and  written  in  this  country  on  the  treat¬ 
ment  meted  out  by  the  Turks  to  their  Armenian 
subjects  during  the  war  has  been  the  paucity  of 
reference  to  the  eff ect,  incidental  and  indirect  no 
doubt,  but  the  real  and  disastrous  effect,  never¬ 
theless,  of  British  policy  in  Turkey  since  the 
Crimean  War  upon  the  fate  of  the  Armenian  sub¬ 
jects  of  the  Turk.  This  is  in  contrast  with  what 
was  said  and  written  during  previous  massacres, 
and  is  no  doubt  attributable  to  the  fact  of  the 
country  being  at  war.  I  am  not  touching  this 
aspect  of  the  question  in  the  way  of  a  grievance. 
I  well  know,  and  most  gratefully  recognize  what 


146 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


the  British  Government  and  people  have  done 
and  are  still  doing  for  us  during  the  long  and 
ghastly  nightmare  through  which  we  are  passing. 
The  noble  and  unremitting  efforts  of  Lord  and 
Lady  Bryce,  Lady  Frederick  Cavendish,  Mr. 
Aneurin  Williams,  Mr.  T.  P.  O’Connor,  Miss 
Bobinson,  Mrs.  and  Miss  Hickson,  Mrs.  Cole, 
Mr.  Noel  Buxton  and  his  brother  the  Bev.  Har¬ 
old  Buxton,  Mr.  Arthur  G.  Symonds,  Mr.  Llew 
Williams,  the  Bev.  Greenland,  Mr.  Arnold  J. 
Toynbee,  and  so  many  other  friends  of  Armenia 
in  this  country,  have  placed  us  under  a  lasting 
debt  of  gratitude  to  them  and  to  Britain.  Lord 
Bryce’s  name  will  live  in  Armenian  history  as 
long  as  Armenia  lasts. 

But  I  do  think  it  is  fair,  in  justice  to  the  people 
of  this  great  and  righteous  empire,  to  one-half  of 
the  Armenian  nation  who  have  fallen  as  heroes 
and  heroines  both  in  war  and  martyrdom,  and  to 
“the  little  blood”  that  is  left  to  the  Armenian 
people,  that  the  facts  in  this  connection  should 
be  placed  frankly  and  fully  before  the  British 
public  at  this  juncture,  so  that  it  may  be  able  to 
form  an  equitable  estimate  of  the  reparation  due 
to  the  Armenians,  not  only  for  the  crimes  and 
ravages  committed  by  the  enemy  during  the  war, 
but  also  in  the  light  of  the  obligations  and  respon¬ 
sibilities  incurred  by  Europe  in  general  and 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


147 


Great  Britain  in  particular  for  the  Armenian 
subjects  of  the  Ottoman  Empire  by  Art.  61  of 
the  Treaty  of  Berlin  and  the  Cyprus  Conven¬ 
tion. 

I  have  said  “Great  Britain,”  but  it  would  be 
more  accurate  to  say  “the  British  Government 
of  the  day,”  for  I  firmly  believe — in  fact,  who 
will  doubt? — that  if  the  British  people  had  had 
the  slightest  suspicion  that  the  Treaty  of  Berlin 
and  the  Cyprus  Convention  had  in  them  the 
germs  of  the  disaster  that  has  since  overtaken  the 
Christian  subjects  of  the  Porte,  they  would  never 
have  ratified  those  treaties.  Nor  do  I  suggest, 
I  need  hardly  say,  that  the  statesmen  who  are  re¬ 
sponsible  for  these  diplomatic  instruments  con¬ 
sciously  and  deliberately  jeopardized  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  an  ancient  Christian  people.  Lord  Salis¬ 
bury’s  sympathetic  utterances  in  1895-96  show 
unmistakably  how  deeply  distressed  he  was  at 
the  grievous  turn  events  had  taken,  and  still  more 
at  the  powerlessness  of  the  Concert  of  Europe 
to  save  the  Armenians  from  the  position  of  ex¬ 
treme  peril  in  which  the  Concert  had  placed  them 
in  1878. 

Successive  British  Governments  have  made 
frequent  attempts  to  improve  the  lot  of  the  Ar¬ 
menians;  but  the  more  they  tried  the  more  the 
Turks  massacred.  There  is  no  fairer-minded 


148 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


public  than  the  British,  whose  hospitality  and  the 
blessings  of  whose  rule  I  have  gratefully  enjoyed 
for  many  years,  as  have  some  thousands  of  my 
compatriots  in  almost  every  part  of  the  empire. 
There  is  also  no  one  more  ready  and  anxious  to 
pay  his  debt  than  the  Briton  when  he  knows  what 
he  owes.  I  have  therefore  no  fear  whatever  of 
arousing  any  resentment  by  calling  the  attention 
of  the  British  public  to  the  existence  of  this  old 
liability.  On  the  contrary,  I  am  convinced  that 
the  fact  will  be  taken  note  of  in  good  part,  and 
by  most  even  thankfully.  I  read  a  Press  article 
not  long  ago — it  was,  if  I  remember  rightly,  a 
review  of  Mr.  Llew  Williams’s  book,  Armenia 
Past  and  Present  in  The  Court  Journal — which 
ended  with  the  following  question:  “If  these  ter¬ 
rible  things  are  true  and  we  have  any  responsi¬ 
bility,  why  are  we  not  told  so?” 

As  regards  the  nature  of  the  responsibilities 
and  obligations,  I  refer  my  readers  to  the  Ap¬ 
pendix,  where  will  be  found  the  texts  of  Art.  61 
of  the  Treaty  of  Berlin,  Art.  18  of  the  Treaty  of 
San  Stefano — which  was  torn  up  and  superseded 
by  the  Treaty  of  Berlin — the  full  text  of  the 
Cyprus  Convention,  and  Lord  Salisbury’s  Dis¬ 
patch  to  Sir  Henry  Layard  containing  instruc¬ 
tions  for  the  negotiation  of  that  Convention. 

I  may  here  point  out  that  though  at  first  sight 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


149 


there  appears  to  be  little  difference  between  the 
wording  of  Art.  16  of  the  Treaty  of  San  Stefano 
and  Art.  61  of  the  Treaty  of  Berlin,  there  is  this 
fundamental  difference  between  the  application 
of  the  two  clauses  that,  while  the  former  left  the 
Russian  Army  in  occupation  of  the  Armenian 
provinces  until  the  reforms  should  be  an  accom¬ 
plished  fact,  the  latter  was  a  mere  Turkish  prom¬ 
ise  to  be  performed  after  their  evacuation  by  the 
Russian  forces.  How  the  Turk  performed  his 
promise  is  well  enough  known,  and  forms  the 
darkest  page  of  modern  history — probably  of  all 
history. 

Those  who  have  the  interest  and  the  time  for 
fuller  information  on  the  subject  I  recommend 
to  refer  to  Mr.  Gladstone’s  famous  speeches  on 
the  Eastern  Question  and  the  Treaty  of  Berlin, 
the  debates  in  both  Houses  of  Parliament  on  the 
massacres  of  1895-96,  Canon  Maccoll’s  ‘‘The  Sul¬ 
tan  and  the  Powers,”  Mr.  W.  Llew  Williams’s 
“Armenia  Past  and  Present,”  and  last  but  not 
least,  “Our  Responsibilities  for  Turkey,”  by  the 
late  Duke  of  Argyll.  This  frank  and  admirable 
commentary  on  the  bearing  of  British  policy  upon 
the  Armenian  question  is  now  unfortunately  out 
of  print.  I  therefore  quote,  with  apologies,  the 
following  lengthy  extract  for  the  convenience  of 
those  who  may  have  difficulty  in  procuring  a 


150 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


copy.  It  is  an  authority  that  will  command  gen¬ 
eral  and  respectful  attention.1  (The  italics  are 
mine.) 

“Nothing  can  be  more  childish  than  to  suppose 
that  the  significance  and  effect  of  such  a  change 
as  this2  can  be  measured  or  appreciated  by  look¬ 
ing  at  the  mere  grammatical  meaning  of  the 
words.  The  words  seemed  harmless  enough. 
They  may  even  seem  to  be  most  benevolent  and 
most  wise  in  the  interests  of  the  Christian  sub¬ 
jects  of  the  Porte  in  Armenia.  But  when  we 
look  at  the  facts  which  lay  behind  the  words,  and 
at  the  motives  which  were  at  work  among  the 
contracting  parties,  we  must  see  that  nothing 
could  have  been  devised  more  fatal  to  their  inter¬ 
ests.  The  change  which  the  new  words  affected 
in  the  Treaty  of  San  Stefano  wounded  the  pride 
and  the  most  justifiable  ambition  of  Russia  to  be 
the  protector  of  her  co-religionists  in  provinces 
with  which  no  other  Christian  Power  had  any 
natural  connection.  On  the  other  hand,  it  de¬ 
lighted  the  low  cunning  of  the  Turk,  in  consti¬ 
tuting  another  ‘rift  within  the  lute’  which  by 
and  by  would  be  quite  sure  to  make  the  ‘music 

1  Our  Responsibilities  for  Turkey,  by  the  Duke  of  Ar¬ 
gyll,  K.G.,  K.T.,  John  Murray,  1896,  p.  72. 

2  The  supersession  of  Article  16  of  the  Treaty  of  San 
Stefano  by  Article  61  of  the  Treaty  of  Berlin. 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


151 


mute’  of  any  effective  concert  between  the  Pow¬ 
ers  of  Europe.  The  Turk  could  see  at  a  glance 
that,  whilst  it 4  relieved  him  of  the  dangerous 
pressure  of  Russia,  it  substituted  no  other  pres¬ 
sure  which  his  own  infinite  dexterity  in  delays 
could  not  easily  make  abortive.  As  for  the  unfor¬ 
tunate  Armenians,  the  change  was  simply  one 
which  must  tend  to  expose  them  to  the  increased 
enmity  of  their  tyrants,  whilst  it  damaged  and 
discouraged  the  only  protection  which  was  pos¬ 
sible  under  the  inexorable  conditions  of  the  phys¬ 
ical  geography  of  the  country.1 

“But  this  is  not  the  whole  of  the  responsi¬ 
bility  which  falls  on  us  out  of  the  international 
transactions  connected  with  the  Treaty  of  Berlin. 
After  that  treaty  had  been  concluded,  we  entered 

1  Town  Topics  of  February  10,  1917,  had  the  following: 
“The  idiotic  and  ignorant  criticism  of  the  Navy  one  hears 
occasionally,  recalls  an  immortal  answer  by  a  harassed 
First  Lord,  during  an  earlier  Armenian  atrocity  (1895- 
96)—  ' 

“  ‘Will  the  right  honourable  gentleman  tell  the  House 
definitely  whether  it  is  proposed  to  send  a  British  battle¬ 
ship  to  Armenia  ?’  asked  the  bore  who  worried  about  every 
country  but  his  own. 

“  ‘It  is  not  proposed  to  send  any  ships  there/  replied 
the  Minister  gravely.  ‘Navigation,  I  am  informed  by 
expert  advisers  at  the  Admiralty,  has  not  been  good  in  the 
vicinity  of  Ararat  since  the  cruise  of  the  Ark.’  ” 

Would  to  God  that  this  intelligence  had  reached  the 
Foreign  Offices  of  Europe  twenty  years  earlier;  before  the 
signing  of  the  Treaty  of  Berlin. 


152 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


by  ourselves  into  a  separate,  and  for  a  while  a 
secret,  convention  with  Turkey,  by  which  we 
undertook  to  defend  her  Asiatic  provinces  by 
force  of  arms  from  any  further  conquests  on  the 
part  of  Russia,  and  in  return  we  asked  for  noth¬ 
ing  more  than  a  lease  of  Cyprus,  and  a  new  crop 
of  Turkish  promises  that  she  would  introduce 
reforms  in  her  administration  of  Armenia.  No 
security  whatever  was  asked  or  offered  for  the 
execution  of  those  promises.  We  simply  re¬ 
peated  the  old  mistake  of  1856,  of  trusting  en¬ 
tirely  to  the  good  faith  of  Turkey,  or  to  her  grati¬ 
tude.  But  this  time  the  mistake  was  repeated 
after  twenty-two  years’  continued  experience  of 
the  futility  of  such  a  trust.  As  to  gratitude,  it 
must  have  been  quite  clear  to  the  Turks  that  we 
were  acting  in  our  own  supposed  interests  in 
resisting  the  advance  of  Russia  at  any  cost. 

6 ‘No  doubt  we  had  occasion  to  remember,  with 
some  natural  bitterness,  the  sacrifice  to  Russia 
of  all  that  the  gallant  General  Williams  had  done 
for  Turkey  in  his  splendid  defence  of  Kars.  But 
we  ought  to  have  remembered,  also,  how  dreadful 
had  been  the  account  given  by  that  able  and  gal¬ 
lant  man  of  the  detestable  Government  which  he 
was  defending.  We  ought  to  have  remembered 
how  easy  were  the  reforms  which  he  had  recom¬ 
mended,  if  the  Turkish  Government  had  been 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


158 


honest ;  and  how  they  had  all  been  systematically 
evaded.  W e  ought,  above  all,  to  have  considered 
the  inevitable  effect  of  this  new  treaty  of  guar¬ 
antee  upon  the  sharp  cunning  of  the  Turks. 
They  saw  how  eagerly  it  was  sought  by  us,  and 
they  must  have  concluded  that,  whilst  we  were 
clearly  not  only  earnest,  but  excited,  in  our  oppo¬ 
sition  to  Russia,  we  were  comparatively  careless 
and  lukewarm  about  any  changes  in  their  own 
system  of  government.  They  must  have  seen 
that  the  new  convention  1  practically  superseded 
even  the  slightest  restraints  put  upon  them  by 
the  Treaty  of  Berlin ,  and  that  the  Christian  pop¬ 
ulation  of  Armenia  were  practically  left  entirely 
at  their  mercy . 

“Let  us  look  back  upon  all  these  transactions 
as  a  whole,  and  try  to  form  some  estimate  of  the 
position  of  responsibility  in  which  they  have 
placed  us  towards  the  Christian  populations  sub¬ 
ject  to  the  Ottoman  dominion.  In  1854-56  we 
had  saved  that  dominion  from  destruction  by 
defeating,  and  locally  disarming,  its  great  natural 
enemy.  We  had  set  up  that  dominion  with  new 
immunities  from  attack,  and  we  had  choked  off 
from  any  protectorate  over  the  Christians  the 
only  Power  which  would  or  could  exert  any  such 
influence  with  effect.  We  had  done  this  without 

1  The  Cyprus  Convention. 


154 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


providing  any  substitute  of  our  own,  except  a 
recorded  promise  from  the  Turks.  We  had  pro¬ 
vided  no  machinery  whereby  bad  faith  on  the 
part  of  Turkey  could  be  proved  and  punished. 
Then,  twenty  years  later,  in  1876,  we  had  obsti¬ 
nately  refused  to  join  the  other  Powers  of  Eu¬ 
rope  in  remedying  this  great  defect,  by  putting 
a  combined  pressure  on  Turkey  to  compel  her 
to  establish  effective  guarantee  for  the  future.  In 
1878  we  had  denounced  the  treaty  in  which  Rus¬ 
sia,  by  her  own  expenditure  of  blood  and  treas¬ 
ure,  had  imposed  on  Turkey  the  obligations  which 
we  had  admitted  to  be  needful,  but  which  we  had 
ourselves  declined  to  do  anything  to  enforce. 
Then,  in  the  same  year,  at  Berlin,  we  had  again 
done  all  we  could  to  choke  off  the  only  Power 
which  had  the  means  and  the  disposition  to  secure 
the  fulfilment  of  any  promises  at  all.  Particu¬ 
larly  in  Armenia  we  had  substituted  for  a  prom¬ 
ise  to  Russia  which  her  power ,  her  geographical 
position ,  and  her  pride  might  have  really  led  her 
to  enforce,  another  promise  to  all  the  Powers 
which,  on  the  face  of  it,  was  absurd — namely,  a 
promise  to  let  all  the  Powers  ‘ superintend  the 
execution *  of  domestic  reforms  in  a  remote  and 
very  inaccessible  country .  Lastly,  in  the  same 
year,  as  we  had  already  choked  off  Russia,  we 
now  proceeded  by  a  separate  Convention  to  choke 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


155 


off  also  all  the  other  Powers  collectively,  by  in¬ 
ducing  Turkey  to  give  a  special  promise  to  our¬ 
selves,  apart  from  them  altogether.  For  the 
performance  of  this  special  promise  we  provided 
no  security  whatever,  but  trusted  entirely,  as  we 
had  done  in  1856,  to  the  good  faith  of  a  Power 
which  we  knew  had  none.  With  Russia  deeply 
offended  and  estranged ,  and  the  rest  of  Europe 
set  aside  or  superseded — such  were  the  conditions 
under  which  we  abandoned  the  Christian  subjects 
of  the  Porte  in  Asia  to  a  Government  incurably 
barbarous  and  corrupt . 

“And  now,  we  are  astonished  and  disgusted 
by  finding  that  the  terrible  consequences  of  all 
this  selfish  folly  have  fallen  on  those  whom  we 
had  professed,  and  whom  we  were  bound  by  every 
consideration  of  honour,  to  protect.  Surely  these 
years  might  have  brought  us  a  reconsideration  of 
our  position.  The  fever  of  our  popular  Russo- 
phobia  had  sensibly  abated.  We  had  secured  our 
‘scientific  frontier’  in  India,  and  Russian  expan¬ 
sion  had  taken  a  new  direction  in  the  Far  East. 
New  combinations — -and  some  new  disseverments 
— had  taken  place  in  Europe.  The  whole  posi¬ 
tion  of  affairs  was  favourable  to  a  policy  of  es¬ 
cape  from  bad  traditions — from  obsolete  doc¬ 
trines — and  from  duties  which  it  was  impossible 
we  could  discharge.  Surely  we  might  have  asked 


156 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


ourselves,  What  had  we  been  doing  all  these 
years  to  fulfil  those  duties?  Nothing.  And  yet 
all  along  we  were  not  ignorant  that  the  vicious 
Government  which  we  had  so  long  helped  to 
sustain  against  all  the  natural  agencies  that 
would  have  brought  it  to  an  end  long  ago  was 
getting  no  better,  but  rather  worse.  We  knew 
this  perfectly  well,  and  we  have  recorded  our 
knowledge  of  it  in  a  document  of  unimpeachable 
authority.  In  the  second  year  after  the  Treaty 
of  Berlin,  when  the  obligations  we  had  under¬ 
taken  under  it  were  still  fresh  in  our  recollection, 
we  had  made  one  more  endeavour  to  recall  the 
Ottoman  Power  to  some  sense  of  shame,  if  not 
to  some  sense  of  duty.  In  1880  we  had  a  special 
Envoy  at  the  Porte,  one  of  our  most  distin¬ 
guished  public  men — Mr.  Goschen;  and  we  had 
called  together  at  Constantinople  a  meeting  of 
all  the  Ambassadors  of  the  six  Powers  of  Eu¬ 
rope  who  were  signatories  of  the  Treaty  of  Ber¬ 
lin.  They  drew  up  an  Identic  Note,  which  they 
all  signed  and  presented  to  the  Porte.  In  that 
Note  they  declared  that  no  reforms  had  been,  or 
were  even  on  the  way  to  being,  adopted,  and  that 
so  desperate  was  the  misgovernment  of  the  coun¬ 
try,  that  fit  would  lead  in  all  probability  to  the 
destruction  of  the  Christian  population  of  vast 
districts.’  Could  a  more  dreadful  confession  have 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


15Y 


been  made  in  respect  to  the  conduct  and  policy 
of  any  Christian  Government? 

“This  Identic  Note  commented  severely  on  the 
calculated  falsehoods  of  all  kinds,  and  on  the  cun¬ 
ning  procrastinations,  which  characterized  the 
conduct  and  language  of  the  Porte.  It  con¬ 
cluded  by  reminding  that  Government,  as  an 
essential  fact,  ‘that  by  treaty  engagements  Tur¬ 
key  was  bound  to  introduce  the  reforms  which 
had  been  often  indicated/  and  that  th^se  reforms 
were  to  be  ‘carried  out  under  the  supervision  of 
the  Powers/ 

“We  might  as  well  have  addressed  our  repre¬ 
sentations  to  a  convict  just  released  from  a  long 
sentence,  and  determined  at  once  to  renew  his 
career  of  crime.  And  so  we  had  gone  on  for 
fifteen  more  years  since  1880,  failing  to  take,  or 
even  attempt  taking,  any  effectual  measures  to 
protect  the  helpless  populations  subject  to  a 
Government  which  we  knew  to  be  so  cruel  and 
oppressive — populations  towards  whom  we  lay 
under  so  many  responsibilities,  from  our  persis¬ 
tent  protection  of  their  oppressors .  At  last 
comes,  in  1894,  one  of  those  appalling  outbreaks 
of  brutality  on  the  part  of  the  Turks  which  al¬ 
ways  horrify,  but  need  never  astonish,  the  world. 
They  are  all  according  to  what  Bishop  Butler 
would  have  called  the  ‘natural  constitution  and 


158 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


course  of  things,’  that  is  to  say,  they  are  the  nat¬ 
ural  results  of  the  nature  and  government  of 
the  Ottoman  Turks.” 

Such  is  the  nature  of  Great  Britain’s  debt  to 
us.  It  was  rashly  incurred  by  her  statesmen. 
Successive  British  Governments  have  made  stren¬ 
uous  efforts  and  run  great  risks  to  discharge  it. 
But  it  has  proved  undischargeable  for  forty 
years,  with  consequences  to  us  which  are  well 
known.  This  terrible  war  and  the  ensuing  peace 
will  give  Great  Britain  both  the  power  and  the 
opportunity  to  discharge  that  obligation,  and  our 
weapons  for  enforcing  our  claim  are  the  honour, 
the  conscience  and  the  never-failing  sense  of  jus¬ 
tice  of  England,  Scotland,  Wales,  Ireland  and 
the  British  Empire.  I  appeal  to  these  in  the 
name  of  my  sorely-stricken  nation,  pale,  pros¬ 
trate  and  bleeding  almost  to  death,  to  stand  by 
us  and  fight  our  battle  at  the  Peace  Conference. 
And  if  my  appeal  reaches  a  wide  enough  circle 
of  British  and  Irish  men  and  women,  I  am  con¬ 
fident  that  my  nation  will  not  die,  but  will  live 
and  prosper,  and  carve  out  a  future  that  will 
amply  compensate  her  for  the  past. 


i 


XI 


AN  APPEAL  TO  THE  COMING  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

GENTLEMEN,  this  historic  conference  has 
come  together  to  draw  up  a  map  of  a  new 
Europe  and  a  new  Near  East  which  will  in  no 
part  violate  the  principle  of  nationality — the 
great  weakness  and  inherent  injustice  of  former 
treaties,  which  has  been  largely  responsible  for 
the  disastrous  war  now  happily  come  to  an  end. 

You  have  also  assembled  as  a  great  interna¬ 
tional  tribunal  to  uphold  the  sanctity  of  law  and 
humanity,  and  to  give  judgment  as  to  the  just 
reparation  that  must  be  made,  and  as  to  the  pen¬ 
alties  to  be  exacted  for  all  outrages  committed 
during  the  war  against  humanity  and  the  laws 
and  usages  of  civilized  warfare. 

Among  the  multitude  of  problems,  great  and 
small,  that  await  a  just  and  wise  settlement  at 
your  hands,  there  is  also  the  Armenian  question. 

This  question  may  appear,  to  some  of  you  at 
least,  a  small  and  insignificant  one  in  the  presence 
of  the  great  and  weighty  questions  of  world-wide 
importance  that  await  settlement.  I  claim  for  it 

159 


4 


160 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


without  any  fear  of  contradiction  that  in  point  of 
outraged  humanity  and  civilization,  measured  by 
the  sacrifice  of  innocence,  the  magnitude  and  un¬ 
speakable  horrors  of  the  martyrdom,  destruction 
and  ruin  that  has  been  brought  upon  this  people 
with  a  calculated,  deliberate  object,  and  without 
the  slightest  provocation;  I  maintain  that,  on 
these  incontestable  grounds,  this  is  the  greatest 
Wrong  that  ever  demanded  justice  and  repara¬ 
tion  at  the  bar  of  a  great  International  Tribunal. 

And  it  is  not  Turkey  and  Germany  alone  who 
owe  us  reparation,  although  upon  their  shoulders 
lies  the  guilt  for  the  innocent  blood  that  has  been 
ruthlessly  shed,  the  wanton  destruction  that  has 
been  wrought  and  the  untold  suffering  and  sor¬ 
row  brought  upon  this  people  during  the  war. 
All  the  Great  Powers  of  Europe  have  their  share 
of  responsibility  for  leaving  them  at  the  mercy 
of  the  Turk  to  be  murdered,  burned,  outraged, 
enslaved,  to  provide  this  or  that  European  States¬ 
man  the  satisfaction  of  having  scored  a  point 
against  his  opponent  in  the  sordid  jealousies  and 
rivalries  of  conflicting  interests. 

In  1877  Russian  armies,  partly  under  Arme¬ 
nian  generals,  occupied  our  country,  and  we 
hoped  and  believed  that  the  hour  of  our  liberation 
from  the  hideous  nightmare  of  Turkish  domina¬ 
tion  had  struck. 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


161 


It  was  a  short-lived  joy.  The  Congress  of 
Berlin  assembled  soon  after,  tore  up  the  Treaty 
of  San  Stefano  which  had  given  us  the  blessing 
of  effective  Russian  protection,  compelled  the 
liberating  Russian  armies  to  evacuate  our  coun¬ 
try,  and  left  us  once  again  the  sport  and  prey  of 
our  Turkish  and  Kurdish  tormentors. 

After  the  butcheries  of  1895-96  Great  Britain 
was  prepared  to  exact  effective  guarantees  from 
the  Sultan  Abdul  Hamid,  if  necessary  by  force 
of  arms,  against  a  repetition  of  these  unspeakable 
barbarities;  but  the  Russian  Government  of  the 
day,  sore  at  the  rebuff  administered  to  it  by  the 
Treaty  of  Berlin  and  the  Cyprus  Convention, 
opposed  Great  Britain’s  proposal  of  taking  co¬ 
ercive  measures  to  stay  the  hand  of  the  Great 
Assassin. 

In  1913  a  Scheme  of  Reforms  proposed  by 
Russia  formed  the  subject  of  discussion  by  the 
Powers,  and  was  finally  agreed  to  by  Turkey 
after  it  had  undergone  such  modifications  and 
revisions  at  the  instance  of  the  Turks,  backed  by 
Germany,  as  to  render  it  of  little  practical  value. 
The  war  intervened  before  the  scheme  could  be 
put  into  operation,  and  it  remained  a  dead  letter, 
as  had  all  its  predecessors.  Meanwhile  massacre, 
outrage,  rapine,  plunder,  and  all  conceivable 
forms  of  oppression  and  persecution  went  on 


162 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


without  respite,  though  in  varying  degrees  of 
intensity,  culminating  in  the  frightful  hecatombs 
of  the  last  two  years. 

Although,  of  course,  such  was  not  their  object 
and  intention,  the  net  result  of  these  transactions 
was  to  give  the  Turk  the  opportunity,  as  events 
have  unfortunately  proved,  of  murdering,  burn¬ 
ing,  drowning,  torturing,  violating,  enslaving  and 
forcibly  converting  to  Islam  at  least  2,090,000 
unoffending  and  defenceless  Christians  within 
the  comparatively  short  space  of  forty  years.  I 
do  not  for  a  moment  suggest  that  the  authors  of 
these  Treaties  themselves  foresaw  such  a  result 
of  their  efforts.  But  that  makes  no  difference 
to  the  result.  Europe  backed  “the  wrong  horse,” 
as  Lord  Salisbury  had  the  courage  to  say,  and  the 
stakes  were  the  lives  of  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  innocent  Christians — men,  women  and  chil¬ 
dren — and  a  sum  of  human  suff  ering  and  misery 
such  as  the  world  has  probably  never  seen  before. 

I  gratefully  acknowledge  the  efforts  made  by 
the  successive  British,  French,  Russian  and  Ital¬ 
ian  Governments,  from  time  to  time,  to  bring 
moral  or  diplomatic  pressure  upon  the  Turks  to 
treat  us  with  less  harshness  and  inhumanity.  But 
the  Turk,  Young  and  Old,  knew  that  coercion 
would  never  be  used  against  him.  He  treated  all 
European  representations  with  amusement  and 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR  163 

contempt  and  went  his  way  relentlessly,  intent 
upon  wiping  out  the  whole  race.  He  felt  more 
secure  from  the  danger  of  coercion  after  the 
Christian  Emperor  William  II,  on  his  return 
from  his  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  Land,  paid  a 
visit  to  and  fraternized  with  the  Sultan  Abdul 
Hamid  while  his  hands  were  still  red  with  the 
blood  of  the  fearful  massacres  of  1895-96. 

That,  gentlemen,  has  been  the  net  result  of  the 
solemn  promises  given  by  the  Turks  in  the  Treaty 
of  Berlin,  for  which  every  Signatory  Power  has 
its  share  of  responsibility.  Since  that  Treaty 
became  the  law  of  Europe  we  have  made  numer¬ 
ous  appeals  and  representations  for  the  appli¬ 
cation  of  Art.  61.  The  reply  we  received  from 
the  Ministers  of  the  Signatory  Powers  was  al¬ 
most  the  same  every  time  and  everywhere.  “In¬ 
sistence  on  the  application  of  Art.  61  will  lead  to 
complications;  you  must  wait  for  a  favourable 
opportunity.” 

Gentlemen,  that  long-looked-for  opportunity 
has  at  last  come.  Armenia — “the  little  blood  that 
is  left  to  her” — stands  at  the  bar  of  this  Confer¬ 
ence,  full  of  hope  and  expectation  that  the  En¬ 
tente  Powers  will  compel  Turkey  in  the  first 
place  to  make  full  reparation  for  the  untold  hor¬ 
rors,  outrages  and  injustices  that  she  has  inflicted 
upon  her;  that  they  will  compel  Germany  to  com- 


164 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


pensate  her  for  her  acquiescence  in  the  atrocities 
committed  by  the  Turks  while  Turkey  was  under 
her  influence  and  control ;  and  that  they  will  add 
their  own  quota  as  a  debt  of  honour  and  con¬ 
science  in  return  for  a  part  at  least  of  what  she 
has  had  to  endure  as  a  result  of  the  diplomatic 
transactions  cited  above,  for  which  they  have 
their  share  of  responsibility.  You  cannot  give 
us  back  our  dead,  but  this  Conference  gives  you 
the  opportunity  of  exacting  and  making  a  repa¬ 
ration  as  generous  as  our  trials  and  sacrifices 
have  been  heavy. 

“What  do  you  expect  this  Conference  to  give 
the  Armenian  people  as  their  adequate  repara¬ 
tion  and  just  rights?”  I  would  probably  be  asked. 

This  is  what  I  should  expect  the  Conference 
to  give  to  my  nation,  in  all  justice  and  equity: 

The  formation  of  an  autonomous  Armenia, 
comprising  the  vilayets  of  Van,  Bitlis,  Erzeroum, 
K harp ut,  Diyarbekir,  and  Eastern  Sivas,  also 
Cilicia  with  an  outlet  on  the  Gulf  of  Alexan- 
dretta,  say  from  the  port  of  Alexandretta  to  a 
few  miles  south-west  of  Mersina. 

This  State  to  be  an  internationally  guaranteed 
neutral  State  with  its  ports  and  markets  open  to 
all  nations.  It  would  have  an  Organic  Statute 
drawn  up  for  it  by  the  Protecting  Powers,  Eng¬ 
land,  France,  and  Russia,  giving  equality  before 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


165 


the  law  to  all  the  difF erent  elements  of  the  popu¬ 
lation  with  extra-territorial  rights  and  consular 
courts  for  Europeans  for  a  term  of  years.  Russia 
to  act  as  mandatory  of  the  Protecting  Powers, 
and  during  the  first  few  years  the  executive  to 
consist  of  a  Governor- General  or  High  Commis¬ 
sioner  and  a  mixed  Legislative  Council  appointed 
by  the  Protecting  Powers.  A  Legislative  As¬ 
sembly  to  be  called  together  as  soon  as  the  coun¬ 
try  regains  its  normal  state. 

The  country  being  at  present  in  a  more  or  less 
chaotic  state,  an  army  of  occupation  will  be  nec¬ 
essary  for  as  many  years  as  will  be  required  to 
organize  and  train  an  efficient  gendarmerie  from 
the  local  population.  European  advisers  and 
heads  of  departments  would  be  necessary,  but 
there  are  large  numbers  of  experienced  Armenian 
administrators,  magistrates,  post  and  telegraph 
inspectors,  engineers,  etc.,  etc.,  in  the  Ottoman 
Empire  as  well  as  in  the  Caucasus,  Egypt  and 
the  Balkans,  who  would  gladly  put  their  services 
at  the  disposal  of  their  own  country.  Some  would 
probably  come  from  America,  India  and  else¬ 
where.  Adequate  financial  compensation  by 
Turkey1  and  Germany  would  place  at  the  dis¬ 
posal  of  the  executive  ample  funds  to  begin  the 

1  A  friend  of  mine,  a  Turkish  Armenian  well  acquainted 
with  local  conditions,  told  me  that  <£50,000,000  would  be  a 


166 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


work  of  rebuilding  the  ruined  towns  and  villages 
and  reconstruction  generally,  and  to  carry  on 
the  Government  of  the  country  until  the  first 
year’s  harvest  is  sown  and  gathered  and  revenue 
begins  coming  into  the  Treasury. 

This  is  the  scheme  I  would  propose  in  broad ; 
outline,  it  being  impossible  to  go  into  details  here. 

“But  there  is  not  a  large  enough  number  of 
Armenians  left  to  form  a  State,”  I  may  be  told, 
as  I  have  been  told  so  often  recently.  (I  may 
say  here,  in  parenthesis,  that  the  Turkish  and 
German  delegates  cannot  advance  this  objection, 
as  their  Governments  have  denied  the  existence 
of  any  massacres.) 

That  is  an  entirely  mistaken  assumption,  cre¬ 
ated  by  the  frequent  but  inaccurate  use  of  the 
phrase  “Armenian  extermination,”  The  Turks 
did  make  a  final  ruthless  attempt  to  exterminate 
us,  and  have  dealt  us  a  staggering  blow  as  a 
race;  but,  gentlemen,  they  have  not  quite  suc¬ 
ceeded  in  their  nefarious  design,  and  it  would  be 
a  sad  day,  indeed,  for  civilization  if  such  a  design 
had  succeeded. 

There  are  to-day  500,000  Turkish  Armenians 
in  the  parts  of  vilayets  in  occupation  of  the  Rus- 

conservative  estimate  of  the  material  loss  of  the  1,200,000 
massacred,  deported,  enslaved,  but  in  all  cases  despoiled, 
Armenians. 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


16T 


n  armies,  in  the  Caucasus  and  Northern  Per- 
.  Far  from  their  spirits  being  broken,  these 
Dple  are  animated  with  the  unshakable  deter- 
nation  that  their  beloved  country  shall  rise 
ain  from  its  ashes  and  their  nation  revive  and 
;er  upon  a  new  era  of  security  and  free  devel- 
ment.  Armenians  all  over  the  world  are  ani- 
-ted  with  the  same  spirit  and  determination, 
the  above  half -million  50,000  or  60,000,  mostly 
[e-bodied  men,  are  in  different  parts  of  the 
mpied  provinces.  There  are  a  little  over  250,- 
3  refugees  in  the  Caucasus  and  Persia,  and 
ne  200,000  emigrants  and  refugees  from  pre- 
r  massacres ;  most  of  them  are  ready  to  return 
their  homes,  one  potent  reason  for  the  readi- 
ss  of  the  pre-war  emigrants  to  return  being 
i  growing  scarcity  and  dearness  of  land  in  the 
tile  parts  of  the  Caucasus.  Then  there  are  the 
ndreds  of  thousands  of  Armenians  in  concen- 
tion  camps  in  Northern  Mesopotamia  and 
ria.  How  many  are  alive  to  return  to  their 
instated  homes,  I  cannot  say.  Perhaps  the 
Lrkish  delegate  will  be  able  to  inform  the  Con- 
ence  on  that  point.  Then  there  are  still  large 
mbers  of  Armenians^ — though  mostly  old  men, 
men  and  children,  so  far  as  our  information 
es — in  Anatolia  and  Thrace,  and  over  200,000 
>stly  young,  intelligent,  ambitious  men,  who 


168 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


have  emigrated  since  the  beginning  of  Abdul 
Hamid’s  reign  of  terror,  to  the  United  States, 
Egypt,  the  Balkans,  and  different  other  coun¬ 
tries.  A  not  unimportant  number  of  these  will 
return  to  their  native  land  ready  to  “do  their  bit” 
in  the — to  them — sacred  work  of  its  reconstruc¬ 
tion  and  regeneration  with  invincible  industry. 

This  will  give  us  within  a  very  short  time  an 
Armenian  population  of  not  much  under  one 
million  souls  in  the  proposed  Autonomous  Arme¬ 
nia.  It  may  not  form  a  majority  taken  as  a 
whole,  but  it  will  form  the  largest  coherent  ethno¬ 
logical  element.  In  many  important  centres, 
such  as  Van,  Alashgerd,  etc.,  where  there  are 
almost  no  Turks  left  and  a  much  smaller  number 
of  Kurds  than  there  was  before  the  war,  it  will 
form  an  absolute  majority.  This  is  an  impor¬ 
tant  fact  which  the  Conference  should  bear  in 
mind.  Although  the  Armenian  element  is  sadly 
reduced  in  numbers,  the  great  majority  of  the 
Turkish  and  kindred  elements  in  these  occupied 
provinces  have,  as  is  their  wont,  followed  the  re¬ 
treating  Turkish  armies  and  will  probably  never 
return.  On  the  other  hand,  Armenians  have  for 
some  time  past  and  do  still  percolate  through  the 
Turkish  lines  in  groups  of  various  sizes  and  gain 
the  Russian  lines.  This  movement  of  popula¬ 
tion  will  almost  certainly  continue  for  some  years, 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


169 


tending  to  increase  the  Armenian  and  reduce 
the  Turkish  element  in  the  proposed  Armenian 
State,  if  such  a  State  is  set  up.  Similar  move¬ 
ments  of  populations  have  always  taken  place 
whenever  any  piece  of  Turkish  territory  has 
passed  under  Christian  rule. 

I  may  also  remind  the  Congress  that  when 
Greece  achieved  her  independence,  the  popula¬ 
tion  of  Greece  proper  did  not  exceed  400,000. 

Another  important  point  bearing  on  this  ques¬ 
tion  of  population  is  the  fact,  to  which  most  stu¬ 
dents  of  Near  Eastern  affairs  have  borne  witness, 
that  the  Armenian  race  is  endowed  with  extraor¬ 
dinary  powers  of  recuperation,  is  almost  entirely 
free  from  the  diseases  that  impede  the  rapid 
growth  of  population,  and  is  one  of  the  most  pro¬ 
lific  races  in  the  world.  Their  neighbours,  on  the 
evidence  of  travellers  and  students,  are  less  free 
from  disease  and,  in  spite  of  polygamy,  or  per¬ 
haps  partly  because  of  it,  are  much  less  prolific 

But  apart  from  mere  counting  of  heads,  it  is, 
I  believe,  generally  known  and  admitted  that 
there  is  a  vast  difference  between  the  moral,  in¬ 
tellectual,  economic,  and  industrial  value  of  the 
Armenian  population  as  compared  with  most  of 
its  neighbours,  the  Armenians  being  markedly 
superior  in  every  field  of  human  activity.  They 
have  proved  this  even  under  the  most  trying  han- 


170 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


dicaps,  and  when  they  have  had  a  fair  field  they 
have  easily  proved  themselves  the  equals  of  Euro¬ 
peans.  In  fact,  the  Armenian  mind  is  much  more 
European  than  Asiatic.1 

Lord  Cromer  has  said  that  “the  Armenians 
with  the  Syrians,  are  the  intellectual  cream  of 
Near  Eastern  peoples.” 

But  apart  from  all  these  practical  and  certainly 
essential  and  vital  considerations  there  remains, 
messieurs,  the  moral  argument  which,  I  feel  quite 
certain,  this  august  Conference,  representing  the 
will  and  the  conscience  of  Europe,  is  not  minded 
to  ignore. 

After  the  massacres  and  deportations  of  1915 
Talaat  Bey  is  reported  to  have  said:  “I  have 
killed  the  idea  of  Armenian  autonomy  for  at 
least  fifty  years.”  Whether  he  said  it  or  not, 
that  was  clearly  the  object — to  kill  the  Armenian 
question  by  wiping  out  the  Armenian  race,  and 
incidentally  to  destroy  the  roots  of  Christianity 
in  Asia  Minor. 

Is  this  Conference  going  to  condone  and  jus¬ 
tify  the  barbarous  and  revolting  practice,  as  a 
State  policy,  of  the  deliberate  attempt  to  murder 

1  M.  J.  de  Morgan  says  in  an  article  in  La  Revue  de 
Paris  (May  1,  1916):  “Les  Armeniens  sont  des  Orien- 
taux  par  leur  habitat  seulement,  roais  des  Europeens  par 
leurs  origins,  leur  parler,  leur  religion,  leurs  mceurs  et 
leurs  aptitudes.” 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


171 


a  whole  nation  in  cold  blood,  by  permitting  that 
infamous  policy  to  succeed  in  its  object? 

Is  it  conceivable  that  this  historic  Conference 
can  bring  itself  to  decree  that  the  myriads  of  our 
brothers  and  sisters  who  have  fallen  victims  to 
the  super-tyrants’  fury,  for  their  religion  and 
their  nation,  as  well  as  those  who  have  fallen  in 
the  common  struggle  for  Right,  have  suffered 
and  died  in  vain? 

In  the  name  not  only  of  the  living,  but  also  of 
the  dead,  I  appeal  to  you;  I  appeal  to  the  heart 
and  conscience  of  Europe  to  desist  from  enacting 
such  a  flagrant  and  cruel  injustice. 

M.  Paul  Doumer,  late  President  of  the  French 
Senate,  declared  in  Paris  not  long  ago,  with  a 
fine  sense  of  French  chivalry  and  outraged  hu¬ 
manity,  that  when  the  question  of  Armenian 
population  came  to  be  considered  at  the  end  of 
the  war,  the  dead  must  be  counted  with  the  living. 
Who  but  my  martyred  nation  has  the  moral  right 
to  invoke  the  memorable  and  exalted  words  of 
the  French  officer  who,  at  a  moment  of  dire  straits 
for  men,  looked  at  his  fallen  heroes  around  him 
and  exclaimed  “Debout  les  morts!”? 

I  appeal  to  you,  in  particular,  great  and  noble- 
hearted  Russia,  our  mighty  neighbour  and  pro¬ 
tector.  Our  destiny  is  indissolubly  bound  up  with 
yours.  Without  the  protection  of  your  mighty 


172 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


sword  and  your  most  generous  grants  to  our 
refugees,  the  Turk  would  have  succeeded  in  his 
sinister  design.  We  will  remain  ever  grateful 
to  you,  and  loyal  to  the  death.  We  have  always 
proved  our  unswerving  loyalty  to  you  in  your 
hour  of  peril.  We  in  our  turn  have  rendered 
services  which  have  been  of  value  to  you.  Your 
generals  gave  our  men  great  praise.  Your  fore¬ 
most  newspapers  hailed  our  soldiers  and  volun¬ 
teers,  and  with  truth,  as  the  saviours  of  the  Cau¬ 
casus.  Your  great  Statesmen  and  Ministers  de¬ 
clared  in  the  Duma  that  our  terrible  sufferings 
were  chiefly  due  to  our  loyalty  to  Russia.  Have 
trust  in  us.  Help  us  to  stand  on  our  feet  again 
and  rebuild  our  devastated  homes.  Leave  us 
freedom  to  develop  and  progress  according  to 
our  own  national  genius.  Some  of  your  news¬ 
papers  are  speaking  of  a  scheme  to  plant  Russian 
colonies  in  Armenia,  “to  create  a  dividing  zone 
between  the  Russian  and  Turkish  Armenians.”1 

1  The  Retch,  the  organ  of  the  Constitutional  Democrats 
in  Russia,  has  published  the  following  in  its  issue  of  July 

28,  1916  (O.S.)— 

“The  scheme  of  settling  Russian  emigrants  in  the  occu¬ 
pied  parts  of  Turkish  Armenia,  recently  discussed  in  the 
Duma,  is  being  energetically  carried  out.  This  matter 
has  been  the  subject  of  a  lively  discussion  between  the 
Emigration  and  Military  authorities.  Investigations  are 
in  progress,  not  only  in  the  districts  near  the  frontier,  but 
also  further  afield,  the  fertile  Mush  valley  being  the  ob- 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR  173 

i 

If  this  is  true,  it  is  an  injustice.  I  am  speaking 
candidly  as  a  friend  of  Russia,  and  a  supporter 

ject  of  special  attention.  Agricultural  battalions  have 
been  in  course  of  organization  since  last  autumn  and  al¬ 
ready  number  5000  men.  More  will  be  found  presently. 
Armenians  and  Georgians  are  excluded.  The  task  of  these 
young  arms  is  to  cultivate  the  fields  on  which  investigations 
have  been  carried  out,  under  the  supervision  of  agricultural 
experts,  in  order  to  facilitate  the  provisioning  of  the  army. 
The  question  of  emigrating  the  families  of  these  men  is 
also  under  consideration. 

“Side  by  side  with  this  scheme  there  exists  another 
scheme  of  settling  Cossacks  in  Turkish  Armenia,  on  sim¬ 
ilar  lines  to  what  has  already  been  done  in  Northern  Cau¬ 
casus  with  good  results.  Those  who  have  conceived  these 
schemes  have  in  view  the  creation  of  a  sufficiently  broad 
zone  inhabited  by  Russians,  separating  the  Russian  Ar¬ 
menians  from  the  Turkish  Armenians. 

“Armenian  refugees  are  gradually  returning  to  their 
country  and  resuming  the  work  of  cultivating  their 
lands.  They  usually  settle  in  the  villages  that  have 
suffered  least,  their  own  villages  having  been  totally 
ruined. 

“To  avoid  confusion,  the  Grand  Duke  Nicholas  issued 
a  Ukase  in  March  last,  warning  these  returned  refugees 
to  keep  themselves  in  readiness  to  vacate  these  districts 
on  the  establishment  of  Russian  Civil  Administration.  In 
the  same  Ukase  the  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Caucasian 
Army  has  decreed  that  the  vacant  lands  in  the  plains  of 
Alashkert,  Diadin  and  Bayazid  may  be  given  in  hire  up 
to  the  time  of  the  return  of  their  rightful  owners.  General 
Yudenitch  has  issued  orders,  however,  prohibiting  the 
settlement  in  these  places  of  any  other  immigrants  except 
Russians  and  Cossacks.  Only  those  natives  are  permitted 
to  return  who  are  able  to  prove  ownership  of  land  or 
property  by  legal  documents.  This  arrangement  makes 
it  impossible  for  the  natives  (Armenians)  to  return  to 


174 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


of  my  nationality  as  my  birthright.  Russians 
will  always  be  welcome  amongst  us.  To  show 
our  feelings  towards  you  I  may  mention  the  fact 
that  in  conversation  between  themselves  Arme¬ 
nians  do  not  speak  of  you  as  “Russians”  but  as 
“keri,”  which  means  “uncle.”  But  it  is  mani¬ 
festly  unfair  to  establish  colonies  and  apportion 
lands  before  the  repatriation  of  our  numerous 
refugees,  some  of  whom  may  be  the  owners  of 
the  land  given  away.  Besides,  what  is  the  object 
or  the  necessity  of  a  “dividing  zone”  between  the 
Turkish  and  Russian  Armenians?  We  are  all 
ready  to  rally  to  your  support  again  if  the  need 
should  arise,  as  we  have  always  done  in  your 
righteous  struggle  against  barbarism.  Such 
measures,  before  the  blood  of  our  numerous  vic¬ 
tims  is  dry  on  our  land,  grieve  and  perplex  us. 
I  say  again,  we  welcome  your  protection,  but 
enable  us  to  say  always,  as  Sir  Wilfrid  Laurier 
said  of  the  French  Canadians,  “We  are  loyal  be¬ 
cause  we  are  free.”  With  such  just  and  liberal 


their  homes  because  it  is  ridiculous  to  speak  of  title-deeds, 
when  dealing  with  land  in  Turkey;  and  as  for  other  docu¬ 
ments  which  prove  ownership,  these  always  get  lost  during 
flight. 

“In  the  above  three  plains,  also  in  parts  of  the  plain 
of  Bassain,  the  surviving  native  inhabitants  are  debarred 
from  returning  to  their  homes  and  resuming  their  peace¬ 
ful  occupations/’ 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


175 


treatment  from  you,  we  will  not  only  create  in 
a  short  time  important  markets  for  your  trade 
down  to  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  but  you 
will  have  in  us  a  reliable  bulwark  and  counter¬ 
poise,  on  your  southern  frontier,  against  the  tur¬ 
bulent  elements  who  are  a  standing  menace  to 
that  frontier.  The  stronger  you  help  us  to  grow, 
the  more  secure  that  frontier  of  your  empire 
will  be. 

To  England,  France  and  Italy  I  appeal  jointly 
with  Russia,  to  prevent  the  Congress  from  finally 
condemning  to  death  our  long-cherished  and  le¬ 
gitimate  aspirations  of  national  regeneration,  for 
which  we  have  paid  such  a  fearful  price.  In  par¬ 
ticular  I  appeal  to  you  to  give  us  an  outlet  to 
the  sea,  not  only  as  an  indispensable  necessity 
of  our  economic  life  and  development,  but  also 
as  the  avenue  of  Western  Culture  which  a  hard 
and  cruel  fate  has  so  long  withheld  from  us. 

Let  the  radiant  sun  of  liberty  and  security 
shine  again  on  our  land  of  sorrow  and  drive  away 
for  ever  the  stifling  miasma  of  the  Turkish  blight, 
and  there  will  spring  to  life,  within  a  generation, 
a  people  with  a  passionate  craving  for  the  light 
and  progress  of  the  West — a  people  morally  and 
mentally  equipped  and  adapted  for  the  assimila¬ 
tion  of  the  New  Dispensation  not  only  for  its  own 


176 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


benefit,  but  also  for  its  dissemination  amongst  its 
less  advanced  neighbours — a  well-qualified  and 
willing  instrument  and  leaven  of  Christian  civili¬ 
zation. 


POSTSCRIPT 


SIN CE  the  f oregoing  pages  were  written  and 
before  they  had  left  the  printer’s  hands,  two 
momentous  events  have  occurred  which  must  pro¬ 
foundly  influence  not  only  the  remaining  course 
of  the  war,  but  also,  and  more  especially,  the  set¬ 
tlement  of  the  peace  on  its  termination:  two 
events  that  together  mark  the  greatest  triumph 
of  democracy  and  civilization  the  world  has  seen. 
The  Russian  revolution  and  the  entry  of  the 
great  American  Republic  into  the  ranks  of  the 
champions  of  Right  and  Humanity  have  not  only 
brought  peace  nearer,  they  have  banished  any 
doubt  that  may  have  existed  in  the  minds  of  scep¬ 
tics  both  in  belligerent  and  neutral  countries  that 
this  war  of  wars  is  a  struggle  between  the  forces 
of  Light  and  Liberty  and  the  powers  of  Dark¬ 
ness  and  Reaction. 

After  watching  the  course  of  the  struggle  for 
more  than  thirty  months,  taking  note  of  the 
difference  between  the  methods  of  warfare  em¬ 
ployed  by  the  opposing  groups  of  belligerents; 
after  ascertaining  their  respective  aims;  after 

177 


178 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


long,  patient  and  careful  deliberation,  the  great¬ 
est  of  all  the  neutral  judges  came  to  the  conclu¬ 
sion  that  “civilization  itself  seems  to  be  in  the 
balance.”  (It  will  not  be  forgotten  in  the  En¬ 
tente  countries,  I  feel  sure,  that  though  unlimited 
submarine  “frightfulness”  was  the  immediate 
casus  belli ,  the  martyrdom  of  Armenia  played  an' 
important  part  in  leading  President  Wilson  and 
the  people  of  the  United  States  to  that  conclu¬ 
sion.)  The  world’s  greatest  Democracy,  imbued 
with  a  deep-rooted  love  of  peace  and  abhorrence 
of  war  as  to  which  no  doubt  or  suspicion  any¬ 
where  exists,  has  broken  away  from  a  century- 
old  tradition,  which  was  the  very  foundation  of 
its  external  policy,  and  drawn  the  sword  impelled 
not  by  ambition  or  the  furtherance  of  material 
interests  of  any  kind,  but  by  honour  and  the 
instinctive  call  of  true  chivalry  to  stand  by  those 
who  have  carried  on  a  long  and  fierce  struggle 
to  save  the  “desperately  assaulted”  free  institu¬ 
tions,  principles  and  ideals  which  are  its  own  and 
humanity’s  most  precious  and  sacred  possessions. 
For  the  first  time  in  history — I  think  one  can 
safely  say  that — a  great  nation,  led  by  a  great 
and  sagacious  leader,  has  gone  to  war  prompted 
almost  entirely  with  the  disinterested  motive  of 
upholding  its  own  ideals  and  the  ideals  and  rights 
of  humanity — truly  an  event  of  which  the  best 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


179 


elements  of  the  human  race  will  always  he  proud ; 
which  will  ever  stand  out  as  a  bright  and  noble 
landmark  in  the  history  of  the  world. 

While  these  epoch-making  events  have  stamped 
the  cause  of  the  Allies  with  the  seal  of  supreme 
moral  sanction,  they  have  also  made  assurance 
doubly  sure  that  the  end  of  the  war  will  confer 
upon  the  world  a  lasting  peace  based  upon  real 
justice  and  equity.  The  presence  of  the  dele¬ 
gates  of  the  United  States  at  the  Peace  Confer¬ 
ence  side  by  side  with  the  representatives  of  the 
British  Empire,  France,  Italy,  and  free  Russia 
will  constitute  a  sure  and  sterling  guarantee  to 
the  world  that  the  determining  factors  in  the 
moulding  of  its  destinies  will  not  be  the  selfish 
interests,  avowed  or  veiled,  of  this  or  that  empire, 
not  the  whims  and  ambitions  of  despots  and  rul¬ 
ing  castes  or  the  greed  of  cosmopolitan  financiers, 
but  “the  pure  milk,”  of  the  broad  interests  of 
justice  and  peace,  the  rights  of  nations  great  and 
small  and  the  freedom  and  welfare  of  mankind 
itself. 

To  the  Armenian  people  it  is  a  final  pledge 
that  the  reparation  to  be  demanded  and  obtained 
for  them,  in  the  terms  of  peace  will  be  commen¬ 
surate,  in  full  measure,  with  the  magnitude  of  the 
wrongs  and  sufferings  inflicted  upon  them  be¬ 
cause,  in  a  vast  waste  of  ancient  barbarism  and 


180 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


fraud,  they  formed  an  oasis  embodying  the  ideals 
and  principles  which  the  democracies  of  Europe 
and  America  are  struggling  to  vindicate. 

If  the  great  and  free  nations  of  Europe  have 
greeted  these  auspicious  events  with  the  satisfac¬ 
tion  and  enthusiasm  we  have  witnessed  in  these 
last  days,  it  can  be  readily  imagined  how  intense 
is  the  rejoicing  they  have  evoked  in  the  hearts  of 
the  most  ruthlessly  oppressed  of  all  peoples,  so 
long  denied  the  blessings  whose  advent  has  been 
placed  beyond  all  doubt  by  President  Wilson’s 
clarion  call  to  Democracy  and  by  the  declarations 
of  the  Provisional  Government  of  free  Russia. 

That  the  declarations  of  the  Provisional  Gov¬ 
ernment  of  free  and  regenerated  Russia  have 
been  received  with  profound  satisfaction  by  Ar¬ 
menians,  goes  without  saying.  These  declara¬ 
tions  added  to  those  already  made  by  the  Allied 
Governments  in  regard  to  their  war-aims,  and 
President  Wilson’s  “Declaration  of  Liberty” — 
as  his  inspiring  and  memorable  address  to  Con¬ 
gress  has  been  rightly  called — finally  ensure  the 
realization  of  Armenia’s  legitimate  aspiration  to 
freedom  and  self-government.  And  if  the  Rus¬ 
sian  people  should  decide  that  the  new  Russia 
shall  be  a  Republic,  that  would  open  out  the  vista 
of  a  thoroughly  democratic,  integral  and  united 
Armenian  State  free  to  work  out  her  regenera- 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR  181 

tion  according  to  her  own  national  genius,  under 
the  guidance  of  the  Protecting  Powers  and  with 
their  and  America’s  generous  moral  and  material 
support. 

America’s  interest  in  Armenia  and  the  excel¬ 
lent  work  of  her  Missions  in  numerous  Armenian 
centres  both  in  Armenia  itself  and  throughout 
Asia  Minor  leave  no  doubt  that  when  the  time 
for  reconstruction  comes,  American  aid — moral, 
material  and  cultural — will  be  forthcoming  on  a 
scale  and  in  a  manner  worthy  of  that  great  coun¬ 
try  and  the  lofty  aims  for  which  she  entered  the 
war.  For,  what  part  of  the  vast  war-stricken 
area  in  Europe  and  the  Near  East  more  acutely 
and  tragically  exemplifies  the  evils  which  the 
Allies  and  the  United  States  are  determined  to 
put  an  end  to  once  and  for  all,  and  what  nobler 
and  more  fitting  culmination  to  their  gigantic 
efforts  and  sacrifices  for  humanity,  than  the  re¬ 
demption  and  re-birth  of  this  thrice-martyred 
ancient  Christian  people? 

Before  concluding,  I  take  this  opportunity  to 
call  attention  to  a  passage  in  Mr.  Asquith’s 
speech  in  the  House  of  Commons  on  the  entry 
of  the  United  States  into  the  war,  which  brings 
into  strong  relief  the  guilt  of  the  Governments 
of  the  Central  Powers  in  the  stupendous  crime 
of  attempting  the  murder  of  a  nation,  although 


182 


ARMENIA  AND  THE  WAR 


the  occasion  of  the  speech  was  of  course  the  very 
antithesis  of  the  attitude  of  the  Central  Powers 
towards  the  Armenian  atrocities. 

“In  such  a  situation,”  said  Mr.  Asquith,  “aloof¬ 
ness  is  seen  to  be  not  only  a  blunder  but  a  crime. 
To  stand  aside  with  stopped  ears,  with  folded 
arms,  with  an  averted  gaze,  when  you  have  the 
power  to  intervene  is  to  become  not  a  mere  spec¬ 
tator,  but  an  accomplice.”1 

I  am  quoting  this  striking  utterance  by  one  of 
England’s  greatest  living  statesmen  also  in  the 
hope  that  it  may  furnish  food  for  reflection  to 
those  pro- Turks  who  have  maintained  during 
pre-war  massacres,  and  still  maintain,  with  Count 
Reventlow  and  his  followers,  that  the  massacre 
of  his  Christian  subjects  by  the  Turk  is  his  own 
concern,  and  that  nobody  has  the  right  or  the 
obligation  to  intervene  and  create  new  conditions 
that  will  eliminate  the  possibility  of  its  recur¬ 
rence. 


1  The  Times ,  April  19,  1917. 


APPENDIX 


ARTICLE  XVI  OF  THE  TREATY  OF 
SAN  STEFANO 

As  the  evacuation  by  the  Russian  troops  of  the  terri¬ 
tory  which  they  occupy  in  Armenia,  and  which  is  to 
be  restored  to  Turkey,  might  give  rise  to  conflicts  and 
complications  detrimental  to  the  maintenance  of  good 
relations  between  the  two  countries,  the  Sublime  Porte 
engages  to  carry  into  effect,  without  further  delay,  the 
improvements  and  reforms  demanded  by  local  require¬ 
ments  in  the  provinces  inhabited  by  Armenians,  and 
to  guarantee  their  security  from  Kurds  and  Circassians. 


ARTICLE  LXI  OF  THE  TREATY  OF  BERLIN 

The  Sublime  Porte  undertakes  to  carry  out,  without 
further  delay,  the  improvements  and  reforms  demanded 
by  local  requirements  in  the  provinces  inhabited  by 
the  Armenians,  and  to  guarantee  their  security  against 
the  Circassians  and  Kurds.  It  will  periodically  make 
known  the  steps  taken  to  this  effect  to  the  Powers, 
who  will  superintend  their  application. 


THE  CYPRUS  CONVENTION 
TURKEY  No.  8 6  (1878) 

Correspondence  respecting  the  Convention  between 
Great  Britain  and  Turkey,  of  June  4,  1878. 

Presented  to  the  Houses  of  Parliament  by  Command 
of  Her  Majesty  1878. 

133 


184 


APPENDIX 


List  of  Papers 

No.  1.  The  Marquis  of  Salisbury  to  Mr.  Layard, 
May  80,  1878. 

No.  Sir  A.  H.  Layard  to  the  Marquis  of  Salisbury, 
one  Inclosure  June  5,  1878. 

No.  8.  Sir  A.  II.  Layard  to  the  Marquis  of  Salisbury, 
one  Inclosure  July  1,  1878. 

No.  1  is  the  letter  which  conveys  to  Mr.  Layard 
Lord  Salisbury’s  instructions  for  entering  into  the 
Convention  (as  follows) — 

The  Marquis  of  Salisbury  to  Mr.  Layard. 

Foreign  Office, 

May  80,  1878. 

Sir, 

The  progress  of  the  confidential  negotiations  which 
have  for  some  time  past  been  in  progress  between  Her 
Majesty’s  Government  and  the  Government  of  Russia 
make  it  probable  that  those  Articles  of  the  Treaty  of 
San  Stefano  which  concern  European  Turkey  will  be 
sufficiently  modified  to  bring  them  into  harmony  withi 
the  interests  of  the  other  European  Powers,  and  of 
England  in  particular. 

There  is,  however,  no  such  prospect  with  respect  to 
that  portion  of  the  Treaty  which  concerns  Turkey  in 
Asia.  It  is  sufficiently  manifest  that,  in  respect  to 
Batoum  and  the  fortresses  north  of  the  Araxes,  the 
Government  of  Russia  is  not  prepared  to  recede  from 
the  stipulations  to  which  the  Porte  has  been  led  by  the 
events  of  the  war  to  consent.  Her  Majesty’s  Govern¬ 
ment  have  consequently  been  forced  to  consider  the 
effect  which  these  agreements,  if  they  are  neither 
annulled  nor  counteracted,  will  have  upon  the  future 


APPENDIX 


185 


of  the  Asiatic  provinces  of  the  Ottoman  Empire  and 
upon  the  interests  of  England,  which  are  closely  af¬ 
fected  by  the  condition  of  those  provinces. 

It  is  impossible  that  Her  Majesty’s  Government  can 
look  upon  these  changes  with  indifference.  Asiatic 
Turkey  contains  populations  of  many  different  races 
and  creeds,  possessing  no  capacity  for  self-government 1 
and  no  aspirations  for  independence,  but  owing  their 
tranquillity  and  whatever  prospect  of  political  well¬ 
being  they  possess  entirely  to  the  rule  of  the  Sultan. 
But  the  Government  of  the  Ottoman  Dynasty  is  that 
of  an  ancient  but  still  alien  conqueror,  resting  more 
upon  actual  power  than  upon  the  sympathies  of  com¬ 
mon  nationality.  The  defeat  which  the  Turkish  arms 
have  sustained  and  the  known  embarrassments  of  the 
Government  will  produce  a  general  belief  in  its  deca¬ 
dence  and  an  expectation  of  speedy  political  change, 
which  in  the  East  are  more  dangerous  than  actual 
discontent  to  the  stability  of  a  Government.  If  the 
population  of  Syria,  Asia  Minor,  and  Mesopotamia 
see  tnat  the  Porte  has  no  guarantee  for  its  continued 
existence  but  its  own  strength,  they  will,  after  the  evi¬ 
dence  which  recent  events  have  furnished  of  the  frailty 
of  that  reliance,  begin  to  calculate  upon  the  speedy 
fall  of  the  Ottoman  domination,  and  to  turn  their  eyes 
towards  its  successor. 

1  By  a  curious  irony  of  events,  at  the  time  these  lines  were  writ¬ 
ten  by  the  great  English  statesman,  Egypt  was  governed  by  an 
Armenian  Prime  Minister,  Nubar  Pasha,  while  the  victorious  Rus¬ 
sian  Army  in  the  Caucasus  was  under  the  command  of  the  Ar¬ 
menian  General  Loris  MelikorF,  the  victor  of  Kars,  who  later  be¬ 
came  Minister  of  the  Interior  and  one  of  thp  most  trusted  advisers 
of  the  Czar  Liberator.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  Egypt  had  an 
Armenian  Prime  Minister  during  the  reign  of  the  Khalif  Al-Mus- 
tansir  (1036-94)  by  the  name  of  Badr-el-Gamali  (probably  a  varia¬ 
tion  of  Bedros  Gamalian),  “who  governed  wisely  and  well  for 
twenty  years  (1073-94).” — See  Adrian"  Fortescue:  The  Lesser 
Eastern  Churches,  p.  237. 


186 


APPENDIX 


Even  if  it  be  certain  that  Batoum  and  Ardahan  and 
Kars  will  not  become  the  base  from  which  emissaries 
of  intrigue  will  issue  forth,  to  be  in  due  time  followed 
by  invading  armies,  the  mere  retention  of  them  by 
Russia  will  exercise  a  powerful  influence  in  disintegrat¬ 
ing  the  Asiatic  dominion  of  the  Porte.  As  a  monument 
of  feeble  defence  on  the  one  side,  and  successful  aggres¬ 
sion  on  the  other,  they  will  be  regarded  by  the  Asiatic 
population  as  foreboding  the  course  of  political  history 
in  the  immediate  future,  and  will  stimulate,  by  the 
combined  action  of  hope  and  fear,  devotion  to  the 
Power  which  is  in  the  ascendant,  and  desertion  of  the 
Power  which  is  thought  to  be  falling  into  decay. 

It  is  impossible  for  Her  Majesty’s  Government  to 
accept,  without  making  an  effort  to  avert  it,  the  effect 
which  such  a  state  of  feeling  would  produce  upon  re¬ 
gions  whose  political  condition  deeply  concerns  the 
Oriental  interests  of  Great  Britain.  They  do  not  pro¬ 
pose  to  attempt  the  accomplishment  of  this  object  by 
taking  military  measures  for  the  purpose  of  replac¬ 
ing  the  conquered  districts  in  the  possession  of  the 
Porte.  Such  an  undertaking  would  be  arduous  and 
costly,  and  would  involve  great  calamities,  and  it  would 
not  be  effective  for  the  object  which  Her  Majesty’s 
Government  have  in  view,  unless  subsequently  strength¬ 
ened  by  precautions  which  can  be  taken  almost  as  ef¬ 
fectually  without  incurring  the  miseries  of  a  prelimi¬ 
nary  war.  The  only  provision  which  can  furnish  a 
substantial  security  for  the  stability  of  Ottoman  rule 
in  Asiatic  Turkey,  and  which  would  be  as  essential  after 
the  reconquest  of  the  Russian  annexations  as  it  is  now, 
is  an  engagement  on  the  part  of  a  Power  strong  enough 
to  fulfil  it,  that  any  further  encroachments  by  Russia 
upon  Turkish  territory  in  Asia  will  be  prevented  by 
force  of  arms.  Such  an  undertaking,  if  given  fully 


APPENDIX 


187 


and  unreservedly,  will  prevent  the  occurrence  of  the 
contingency  which  would  bring  it  into  operation,  and 
will,  at  the  same  time,  give  to  the  populations  of  the 
Asiatic  provinces  the  requisite  confidence  that  Turkish 
rule  in  Asia  is  not  destined  to  a  speedy  fall. 

There  are,  however,  two  conditions  which  it  would 
be  necessary  for  the  Porte  to  subscribe  before  England 
could  give  such  assurance. 

Her  Majesty’s  Government  intimated  to  the  Porte, 
on  the  occasion  of  the  Conference  at  Constantinople, 
that  they  were  not  prepared  to  sanction  misgovernment 
and  oppression,  and  it  will  be  requisite,  before  they  can 
enter  into  any  agreement  for  the  defence  of  the  Asiatic 
territories  of  the  Porte  in  certain  eventualities,  that 
they  should  be  formally  assured  of  the  intention  of  the 
Porte  to  introduce  the  necessary  reforms  into  the  gov¬ 
ernment  of  the  Christian  and  other  subjects  of  the  Porte 
in  these  regions.  It  is  not  desirable  to  require  more 
than  an  engagement  in  general  terms ;  for  the  specific 
measures  to  be  taken  could  only  be  defined  after  a 
more  careful  inquiry  and  deliberation  than  could  be 
secured  at  the  present  juncture. 

It  is  not  impossible  that  a  careful  selection  and  a 
faithful  support  of  the  individual  officers  to  whom 
power  is  to  be  entrusted  in  those  countries  would  be  a 
more  important  element  in  the  improvement  of  the 
condition  of  the  people  than  even  legislative  changes ; 
but  the  assurances  required  to  give  England  a  right  to 
insist  on  satisfactory  arrangements  for  these  purposes 
will  be  an  indispensable  part  of  any  agreement  to  which 
Her  Majesty’s  Government  could  consent.  It  will  fur¬ 
ther  be  necessary,  in  order  to  enable  Her  Majesty’s 
Government  efficiently  to  execute  the  engagements  now 
proposed,  that  they  should  occupy  a  position  near  the 
coast  of  Asia  Minor  and  Syria.  The  proximity  of 


188 


APPENDIX 


British  officers,  and,  if  necessary,  British  troops,  will 
be  the  best  security  that  all  the  objects  of  this  agree¬ 
ment  shall  be  attained.  The  Island  of  Cyprus  appears 
to  them  to  be  in  all  respects  the  most  available  for  this 
object.  Her  Majesty’s  Government  do  not  wish  to  ask 
the  Sultan  to  alienate  territory  from  his  sovereignty  or 
to  diminish  the  receipts  which  now  pass  into  his  Treas¬ 
ury.  They  will,  therefore,  propose  that,  while  the  ad- . 
ministration  and  occupation  of  the  island  shall  be  as¬ 
signed  to  Her  Majesty,  the  territory  shall  still  con¬ 
tinue  to  be  part  of  the  Ottoman  Empire,  and  that  the 
excess  of  the  revenue  over  the  expenditure,  whatever 
it  at  present  may  be,  shall  be  paid  over  annually  by 
the  British  Government  to  the  Treasury  of  the  Sultan. 

Inasmuch  as  the  whole  of  this  proposal  is  due  to 
the  annexations  which  Russia  has  made  in  Asiatic  Tur¬ 
key,  and  the  consequences  which  it  is  apprehended  will 
flow  therefrom,  it  must  be  fully  understood  that,  if 
the  cause  of  the  danger  should  cease,  the  precautionary 
agreement  will  cease  at  the  same  time.  If  the  Govern¬ 
ment  of  Russia  should  at  any  time  surrender  to  the 
Porte  the  territory  it  has  acquired  in  Asia  by  the  re¬ 
cent  war,  the  stipulations  in  the  proposed  agreements 
will  cease  to  operate,  and  the  island  will  be  immediately 
evacuated. 

I  request,  therefore,  your  Excellency  to  propose  to 
the  Porte  to  agree  to  a  Convention  to  the  following 
effect,  and  I  have  to  convey  to  you  full  authority  to 
conclude  the  same  on  behalf  of  the  Queen  and  of  Her 
Majesty’s  Government — 

“If  Batoum,  Ardahan,  Kars,  or  any  of  them  shall  be 
retained  by  Russia,  and  if  any  attempt  shall  be  made  at 
any  future  time  by  Russia  to  take  possession  of  any 
further  portion  of  the  Asiatic  territories  of  the  Sultan, 


APPENDIX 


189 


as  fixed  by  the  definitive  Treaty  of  Peace,  England 
engages  to  join  the  Sultan  in  defending  them  by  force 
of  arms.  In  return,  the  Sultan  promises  to  England 
to  introduce  necessary  reforms  (to  be  agreed  upon 
later  between  the  two  Powers)  into  the  government  of 
the  Christian  and  other  subjects  of  the  Porte  in  these 
territories ;  and,  in  order  to  enable  England  to  make 
necessary  provision  for  executing  her  engagement  the 
Sultan  further  consents  to  assign  the  Island  of  Cyprus 
to  be  occupied  and  administered  by  England.” 

I  am,  etc., 

(Signed  )  S  alisb  xjry. 

No.  2  is  the  Convention  itself,  as  follows — 

Article  I 

If  Batoum,  Ardahan,  Kars,  or  any  of  them  shall  be 
retained  by  Russia,  and  if  any  attempt  shall  be  made 
at  any  future  time  by  Russia  to  take  possession  of  any 
further  territories  of  His  Imperial  Majesty  the  Sultan 
in  Asia,  as  fixed  by  the  definitive  Treaty  of  Peace,  Eng¬ 
land  engages  to  join  His  Imperial  Majesty  the  Sultan 
in  defending  them  by  force  of  arms. 

In  return,  His  Imperial  Majesty  the  Sultan  promises 
to  England  to  introduce  necessary  reforms,  to  be  agreed 
upon  later  by  the  two  Powers,  into  the  government 
and  for  the  protection  of  the  Christian  and  other  sub¬ 
jects  of  the  Porte  in  these  territories;  and  in  order  to 
enable  England  to  make  necessary  provision  for  exe¬ 
cuting  her  engagement  His  Imperial  Majesty  the  Sul¬ 
tan  further  consents  to  assign  the  Island  of  Cyprus 
to  be  occupied  and  administered  by  England. 

Article  II 

The  present  Convention  shall  be  ratified,  and  the 
ratifications  thereof  shall  be  exchanged,  within  the 
space  of  one  month,  or  sooner  if  possible. 


190 


APPENDIX 


In  Witness  whereof  the  respective  Plenipotentiaries 
have  signed  the  same,  and  have  affixed  thereto  the 
seal  of  their  arms. 

Done  at  Constantinople,  the  fourth  day  of  June,  in 
the  year  One  thousand  eight  hundred  and  seventy-eight. 

(L.S.)  A.  H.  Layard. 

(L  .S.)  Safvet. 


No.  3  is  the  Annex  to  the  above  Convention,  con¬ 
sisting  of  Six  Articles,  signed  at  Constantinople  on 
July  1,  1878,  by  A.  PI.  Layard  and  Safvet  respectively. 
The  first  five  Articles  deal  with  the  manner  in  which  the 
Island  of  Cyprus  would  be  governed,  whilst  under 
British  occupation.  The  final  Article,  viz.  Article  VI, 
is  as  follows — 


“That  if  Russia  restores  to  Turkey  Kars  and  the 
other  Conquests  made  by  her  in  Armenia  during  the 
last  war,  the  Island  of  Cyprus  will  be  evacuated  by 
England;  and  the  Convention  of  June  4,  1878,  will 
be  at  an  end.” 


NOTE 

(p.  29.) 

“The  Turanian  movement  is  not  the  spasmodic 
effort  of  a  few  enthusiasts.  It  represents  a  carefully 
matured  plan  most  elaborately  studied  in  its  philo¬ 
sophical  and  practical  aspects,  and  carried  out  on  a 
vast  and  ambitious  scale.  The  spirit  of  its  teaching 
has  been  made  to  permeate  all  classes  of  the  purely 
Turkish  population,  including  women;  while,  in  the 
army,  it  has  been  taught  in  the  shape  of  a  patriotic 
creed,  and  the  force  of  military  discipline  has  been 


APPENDIX 


191 


laid  at  the  service  of  its  promoters.  The  movement, 
therefore,  no  longer  expresses  the  creed  of  a  limited 
number  of  nationalist  fanatics,  represented  by  the 
Central  Committee  of  Union  and  Progress,  or  the 
extremist  section  of  it,  but  of  practically  the  whole 
of  the  Turkish  people,  backed  by  the  formidable  power 
of  the  army.  Thus,  the  view  that  would  represent 
the  Turkish  people  as  unwitting  or  unwilling  tools 
in  the  hands  of  the  Unionist  Government  can  no  longer 
be  accepted.  The  Turkish  race  as  a  whole,  with  but 
few  exceptions,  stands  convicted  of  indulging  in  a 
wanton  political  dream,  for  the  realization  of  which 
it  seized  the  opportunity  of  the  world-war  to  commit 
most  atrocious  crimes.  It  is  true  that  the  initial 
responsibility  lies  with  the  C.U.P.,  but  the  whole  of 
the  Turkish  nation  has  since  shared  the  responsibility 
by  its  ready  response.  This  is  borne  out  by  the  easy 
success  attained  by  the  Unionist  Government  in 
modifying — with  hardly  a  dissentient  voice — the  sys¬ 
tem  of  State  education,  embracing  even  the  elementary 
schools,  and  in  misappropriating  the  WaJcfs  funds. 

“Military  officers  of  the  higher  grades  were  in¬ 
structed  to  pay  periodical  visits  to  the  barracks  and 
there  deliver  lectures  of  a  mixed  religious  and  racial 
character,  prepared  by  the  Government.  Were  not  the 
Turkish  heart  a  ready  soil,  such  sowings  would  not 
have  yielded  such  an  early  and  abundant  harvest.  In 
spite  of  successive  admixtures  of  blood,  the  Turks  have 
retained  the  original  instincts  of  the  wild  men  of  the 
Steppes,  and  a  creed  aiming  at  conquest  and  domina¬ 
tion  through  destruction  and  bloodshed  found  eager 
response  in  their  souls.  Islam,  sympathetic  as  it  is,  de¬ 
spite  its  militant  character,  was  sacrificed  for  the  reali¬ 
zation  of  this  widest  of  human  dreams.  There  was  not 
enough  of  ‘iron  and  blood’  in  its  teaching.  The  Tura- 


192 


APPENDIX 


nian  creed,  framed  on  the  Prussian  pattern  of  mili¬ 
tarism,  appealed  a  thousand  times  more  to  the  Turks’ 
savage  nature;  and  the  proof  is  that,  without  ^ny  com¬ 
pulsion  being  employed,  it  quickly  supplanted  the  re¬ 
ligious  heritage  of  centuries.  The  troops  took  up  read¬ 
ily  the  heroic  Turanian  songs  in  place  of  the  usual 
prayers  which  had,  until  lately,  been  compulsory,  but 
are  so  no  more.  The  simplest  of  Anatolians  willingly 
accepted  the  idea  that  the  prophet  of  later  days  is 
Enver!  The  fundamental  rules  of  Islam  became,  for 
them,  the  Testimony  (for  the  unity  of  God),  Reason, 
Character,  and  the  Collection  of  contributions  for  the 
Government  and  the  War  under  the  Turkish  banner.” 

(From  an  article  entitled  “Turanian  and  Moslem”  in  The  Near 
East,  April  20,  1917.) 

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